Thread: Another race riot in school: Latinos, blacks fight whites at

ALIPAC NOTE: I've placed this here because this sounds like the kinds of threats many American students that have wanted to protest for America have faced of late in the SW US Schools. They have been told they cannot protest because a riot may ensue.

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Latinos, blacks fight whites at Hart High; 4 students arrested

BY SUE DOYLE, Staff Writer

NEWHALL - Fighting between white, black and Latino students Friday at Hart High School resulted in the arrests of four teens, a sheriff's sergeant said.
Students were arrested on suspicion of failure to disperse, said sheriff's Sgt. Cortland Myers, adding that the fight appeared racially motivated. There were no injuries.

Witnesses said black and Latino classmates teamed up together and fought white students during lunch in retaliation for a fight between two teens at the school on Thursday when racial names were called.

William S. Hart Union High School District officials said it was not known what started the fighting or whether it was racially based.

Students on campus had other impressions.

"It was racial. All the Mexican and blacks gathered up and fought the whites," said Agustin Chavez, 15. "It was a rumble."

The freshman was off campus when fighting broke out about 12:35 p.m. and watched from the street as sheriff's deputies swarmed the school to intervene.

Friday's fight involved an estimated 20 students, who had first formed a large circle on the school's quad. At first, the teens stood in the circle, posturing and staring one another down. Then a group splintered off and fought, Myers said.

Principal Gary Fuller and other school officials were in the middle of that circle, trying to calm students when the fighting began and did not see where it started.

"They were in a circle looking at one another, and we were in the middle," he said. "Something happened off the circle."

Fuller said the school got word earlier in the day about the possibility of unrest on campus, and that he and others spread through the school to quell any uneasiness. He said it was not known whether Thursday's fight spilled over to the altercations on Friday.

After the fights, the school went into lockdown. Gates were snapped shut, and school staff monitored entrances. Even a garbage truck was turned away.

Students were told to go to their sixth-period classes. Between 50 and 75 students resisted and were then confronted by sheriff's deputies.

Some teens fled the campus and called parents and friends on their cell phones for rides home. Meanwhile, a helicopter flew overhead and broadcast an order for students to return to class.

"I busted out of there," said Bethany Barwell, 16, as she ran past a fleet of squad cars.

The commotion drew residents across the street from the school, who craned their necks from the windows of their apartments to see what was happening.

Deputies escorted students off campus classroom by classroom. About 75 parents waited for them on auditorium steps, underneath trees and across the school's front lawn.

With one son by her side, Robin Simons of Valencia scanned the crowd, looking for her other boy to come out of the school.

When she first learned of the lockdown, she said she immediately flashed back to a race riot she witnessed as a student in the 1970s at Granada Hills High School. She was saddened at the thought of students today experiencing the same tension again.

"Nothing has changed over time. It just moved one valley over," she said. "It's so scary."

In February, nine students from Golden Valley High School were arrested and booked on suspicion of battery after a campus brawl fought along racial lines.

http://www.dailynews.com/santaclarita/ci_3764566

I posted about this a few days ago. The incident goes a little deeper than the article says. They had a bunch of kids ditch school Monday and also a threat of violence posted on Myspace that caused about half the school to stay home. Check out the link for more articles.

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-25206-william.html++hart

Here's another article on school fighting from a month ago. I searched the forum and didn't see anything posted. This incident took place in the state of Washington.


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l ... os06m.html

Thursday, April 6, 2006 - 12:00 AM


3 more students charged in Everett High School fight

By Lynn Thompson
Times Snohomish County Bureau

Three Everett High School students were charged with misdemeanors Tuesday for their alleged involvement in a fight outside the school March 6 that reignited tensions between administrators and Latino students.

Two Latinas, one 15 and one 16, were charged with obstructing a police officer. An African-American boy, 16, was charged with assault and failure to disperse after allegedly hitting an officer, according to charging papers filed in Snohomish County Juvenile Court.

The fight erupted between the two girls just after school let out. Police were called when school administrators said repeated attempts to break up the fight failed. A large crowd of students gathered, and police said a near-riot erupted as the students taunted administrators and arriving police.

The girls continued to hit each other after police threatened to pepper-spray them. The girls also swore at police and at school administrators, according to charging papers.

As police tried to clear the area, the boy refused to leave. When an officer poked him in the ribs and attempted to guide him away, the boy swore and knocked away the policeman's arm, the court papers say.

Rogelio Hernandez, an 18-year-old senior, was charged two weeks ago with felony assault in connection with the incident. He allegedly knocked a policewoman to the ground as she attempted to break up the fighting girls. The Mexican American, who is a legal resident of the United States and has been here five years, faces possible deportation to Mexico if convicted of the felony.

Latino parents accused the district of overreacting and questioned whether police would have been called if the girls had been white. They also asked for a meeting with district Superintendent Carol Whitehead.

Whitehead declined to meet with them, citing confidentiality of student records. Everett school officials disciplined 13 students, including those charged, after the fight, most of them Latino.

Last year, Latino parents filed 15 complaints with the school district alleging discriminatory treatment of their children. An independent investigator found no overt racism but said a "disconnect" existed between minority students, staff and administrators. Parents also point to the gap in the academic achievement between their students and others in the district.

Hispanic 10th-graders lag significantly behind other Everett students on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. Just 26 percent met standards in math last year, compared with 47 percent of 10th-graders in the district.

Their dropout rate is also almost twice as high, with about 20 percent dropping out each year, compared with 11 percent of all district students, according to statistics from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Lynn Thompson: 425-745-7807 or lthompson@seattletimes.com

clearly, Congress nor the President care about the danger they have placed the children of this country