GILROY
– Video images of American Nick Berg’s beheading at the hands of
his Iraqi captors were deemed too graphic to be aired by the
mainstream media.
GILROY – Video images of American Nick Berg’s beheading at the hands of his Iraqi captors were deemed too graphic to be aired by the mainstream media.
Nevertheless, 10 Gilroy High School students apparently watched the videotaped execution in an English class after their teacher helped them get to a Web site where they could view it.
Students in Margaret Ota’s Advanced Placement senior English class said they were discussing the guillotine beheadings described in Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” when Ota asked them if they had seen Berg’s beheading.
Ota is now caught up in a controversy repeated across California and the United States, after trying last week to relate Berg’s graphic killing to the novel set in 18th-century France and England.
Ota would not comment, except to say, “(GHS) is investigating it; let them finish. … The truth will come out.”
Superintendent Edwin Diaz said GHS administration received a call Monday from a concerned parent whose child watched the beheading in Ota’s class and now is looking into a second incident at GHS. Through an investigation, the district found that Ota did not directly show students the video.
