Man Who Brought Tortillas To CIF Basketball Game Fires Back At Community

A man from Cornado has taken credit for bringing the tortillas that were thrown at students from Orange Glen High School at a regional championship basketball game over the weekend.

According to FOX5, Luke Serna wrote an unsigned letter to the Coronado Unified Governing Board arguing that there was "absolutely no racial intent" in tossing the tortillas at the end of the game.

Community members have condemned the action for being racist and disrespectful since a majority of the team members at Orange Glen are Latino.

Coronado High's head basketball coach, JD Laaperi, was fired by the Coronado Unified School District Board and the San Diego NAACP is calling on the CIF to ban the players and parents involved in the incident.

In the letter, Serna explained that the tortilla tossing was meant to mimic a tradition done at sporting events at UC Santa Barbara which he attended from 1999 to 2004.

“There was not a shred of ill-intent or racial animus in carrying out this celebratory action,” Serna wrote in the letter to the board. “Those who have enflamed this issue into a racially charged issue should be utterly ASHAMED of themselves. The people who have fallen for this frame-up to smear Coach Laaperi are not worthy of being any part of the discussion regarding this event as it is their intent to try and fan the flames of racism where none existed.”

Despite Serna's self-proclaimed harmless intentions, the tortilla tossing was not well received by Orange Glen players, coaches, activities, and leaders from both high schools.