Locke High tries to recover from last week's melee
More L.A. Unified police officers are sent to the campus and intervention specialists are brought in to talk to students. Officials say fights have plagued the school since the academic year began.
By Howard Blume and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
1:58 PM PDT, May 12, 2008
An uneasy calm returned to Locke High School today following the roving, half-hour-long melee involving 600 students last week that required dozens of police officers in riot gear to defuse.

A dozen Los Angeles Unified School District police officers were dispatched to the South Los Angeles campus, 10 more than normally assigned to the campus. Los Angeles police also stepped up patrols in the neighborhood.



Locke High School in South Los Angeles locked down after huge brawlBut attendance was down by about 250 students at the school, which is 65% Latino and 35% African American. And there were differing stories about what may have prompted the brawl on Friday.

School officials brought in 20 intervention specialists divided into teams of two. Intervention specialist Holly Priebe-Diaz said they had talked to more than 300 students by noon.

Half of the students said the brawling was prompted by bored young people getting out of control. But others said that ongoing racial tension and gang problems were to blame.

"This is a microcosm of something bigger happening in the community," Priebe-Diaz said.

The campus at 111th and San Pedro streets has long been one of the city's most troubled campuses. School officials admit that it has been a particularly difficult year at Locke, with fights almost every day during much of the fall and winter.

The fight Friday broke out as students returned from lunch to their fifth-period classes. Overwhelmed school officials called Los Angeles police for help, but students and faculty said it took about half an hour before more than 100 L.A. Unified and Los Angeles police officers, many in riot gear, restored order.

Chanell Campbell, 16, said there had been talk that "something bad would happen," leading up to Friday. She saw students with gashed heads and broken noses.

Fernando Marenco, 16, said there was "a lot of chaos," and while students said they were scared, they were "still running toward the stampede."

howard.blume@latimes.com

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 9494.story