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Hollister Tryon, age 18, who was forbidden from attending his graduation in Hartford County from Glastonbury High School for allegedly altering the school’s yearbook, is now facing criminal charges, according to police.
Specifically, Tryon was charged with two counts of third-degree computer crimes for accessing a database used by students to alter classmates’ entries in the yearbook to include the offensive postings.
Police in Glastonbury said that Tryon “is accused of unlawfully accessing a computer database students used to submit their yearbook quotes, and changing the two students’ quotes prior to publication of the yearbook in October 2020.”
The altered entries into the yearbook were discovered by school officials in May when the school began distributing yearbooks to seniors, which promptly ceased.
“We discovered that an appalling quote and another yearbook entry were submitted by a student using a false name and were published in this year’s yearbook,” school officials said in a message to the community in May.
“The quote was from Hilter and was attributed to George Floyd. The other entry was a reference to the ‘Boston bomber,’ Superintendent Alan Bookman and High School Principal Nancy Bean added.
“Our first priority was to support the students victimized by this act. We have been in regular contact with both the victims and the victims' families. We suspended yearbook distribution immediately.”
Officials noted that further investigation found another offensive quote glorifying war in the yearbook, forcing the district to send replacement pages that were inserted in the yearbooks, and seniors to return theirs for correction.
Tryon was arrested on Friday, July 9, and his mother reportedly had to pick up his diploma from the high school after he was barred from attending graduation.
He was initially held on a $5,000 bond and later released on $500 cash bail and is scheduled to return to Manchester Superior Court on Friday, Aug. 6.
“We deeply regret not having caught the act of bigotry and vandalism before the yearbook was printed,” they said. “We are examining and will revise our yearbook procedures for collecting and reviewing future student submissions.
“Our school community is greatly distressed and disturbed by the antisemitic, racist, and biased yearbook incident. There is no place for any of this anywhere in our school system. We recognize that racism and privilege exist in our society.”
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