A group of Tahoma Junior High students who were charged in April with malicious harassment were arraigned last Friday.

According to Dan Donahoe, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, all four pleaded not guilty, and there are a few different case setting hearings set for May.

“A case setting hearing is usually for scheduling a trial date or for handling any pre-trial motions,” Donahoe said in an e-mail.

All four boys are accused of harassing a classmate with the situation coming to a head in late January.

Principal Rob Morrow and Dean of Students Craig Johnson contacted the police Jan. 29 after learning of the incident where four white boys taunted a black boy while riding home from school on a district school bus.

District officials told The Reporter last month after Johnson interviewed all of the boys he “determined that this was more than a typical dispute and that it had been going on for months.”

The victim claimed the boys called him names on the bus and used racial slurs. On Jan. 28 the boys planned to fight with the victim, first on the bus, then later getting sticks and a cane to confront him at his bus stop.

Problems continued the next morning on the ride to school. The four suspects tried to get the victim and his friend to fight. While on the way to the junior high the bus driver called ahead and requested the school’s resource officer, Deputy Mike Sutherland, meet the bus when it arrived.

After the bus arrived the boys were interviewed by Sutherland who read them their Miranda rights and had them sign a suspect rights form.

One of the suspects admitted on Jan. 28, after they were unable to confront the victim and his friend, the four began planning what they wanted to do on the bus the next day while walking back to their neighborhood.

The four boys will be back in court during three different hearings in May.