Thread: Riot in South LA High School

Locke High School brawl



Los Angeles Police Department officers walk past concerned parents gathered at Locke High School in South Los Angeles, where a melee involving 600 students broke out after lunchtime. Four people were arrested and the campus was locked down.
May 9, 2008

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



A woman hugs her son after the brawl between rival groups of black and Latino students.
May 9, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... ry?index=2



A youth with ice on his head and blood on his shirt emerges from the campus, which has long been one of the city’s most troubled.
May 9, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... ry?index=3



An LAPD officer talks to an irate parent at the school at 111th and San Pedro streets.
May 9, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... ry?index=4



A student climbs a fence for a better view. Four students were treated in the school nurse’s office for minor injuries, but there were descriptions of students being badly beaten.
May 9, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... ry?index=5

Locke High School brawl



Parents and others gather after the brawl.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... ry?index=6



The situation remained tense as police scoured the campus at Locke High School in South Los Angeles, site of a afternoon melee among students.
May 9, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... ry?index=7



Concerned parents gather at Locke High School after the South Los Angeles campus was locked down because of a lunchtime melee among students.
May 9, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... ry?index=8



Students peer from a window at Locke High School, site of a fight involving as many as 600.
May 9, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... ry?index=9

This contains additional information about the school.

Locke High School in South Los Angeles locked down after huge brawl

Four people are arrested after a lunchtime melee involving as many as 600 students.
By Howard Blume and Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
May 10, 2008
A fight between rival groups of black and Latino students at Locke High School quickly escalated into a campus-wide melee Friday, with as many as 600 students brawling until police restored calm with billy clubs.

The troubled campus in South Los Angeles was locked down after the fight broke out at 12:55 p.m., 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 dozens of officers, many in riot gear, restored order.



Photos: Locke High School brawl"The kids were crazy, running from place to place, jumping on other kids," said Reggie Smith, the school's band director, who said he ran to pull his students from the melee. "Some of my kids were crying because they were walking to class with friends and they got jumped."

Los Angeles Unified School District police said that there are only two officers assigned to Locke but that the school police force brought in about 60 officers after receiving word of the brawl. The Los Angeles Police Department also dispatched more than a dozen patrol cars and about 50 officers.

Susan Cox, an LAUSD spokeswoman, said police arrested four people -- three students for fighting and one non-student for illegal possession of a knife. Four students were treated in the school nurse's office for minor injuries.

The campus at 111th and San Pedro streets has long been one of the city's most troubled. This school year has been particularly difficult, with near-daily fights -- albeit on a much smaller scale -- during much of the fall and winter. Locke is about to be reorganized as a cluster of charter schools run by Green Dot Public Schools, which will take over in July, and some faculty and staff have accused the district of letting the campus drift in its final year as a traditional public school.

"Morale has really dropped because they don't feel like they have everybody behind them," cheerleading coach Marlo Jenkins said recently. "There are just fights upon fights upon fights now."

Faculty members and Green Dot complained that L.A. Unified nearly halved its funding for non-police security aides at the start of the year. The school has been especially plagued by tagging crews -- the school employs two full-time workers just to paint over graffiti, said Green Dot's Kelly Hurley, who is managing the transition.

Faculty members also complained repeatedly about in-school ditching and a massive tardiness problem. Finally, the district restored some of the trimmed security, faculty said, and also dispatched an additional administrator to help restore order. Until then, the district had relied on Principal Travis Kiel, who'd been brought back from retirement. In recent weeks, students and teachers have reported improved conditions -- less ditching, a little less graffiti.

But then came Friday's melee, which students and teachers said was by far the worst of the year, perhaps the worst in years.

Joseph Sherlock, a senior, 17, who has been at Locke for four years, called it "my first actual encounter with a riot." He added: "I've seen fights, and I've seen fights between black and brown, but I've never seen anything like this."

Sherlock, who said he saw police use pepper spray during the melee, said tensions between African American and Latino students have not been a serious problem at the school. With an enrollment of 2,600, Locke is 65% Latino and 35% African American.

"It's not the way it's portrayed in the media; that's not what it's like at all," said Sherlock, who is black. Another black student, Ronald White, said African American and Latino students commonly divide along ethnic lines but aren't necessarily hostile. "Everybody usually just sticks to themselves," he said.

White, a 17-year-old senior, said he had just stepped from a main building into the school's grassy quad when he was met with a scene of chaos.

Hundreds of students were outside, and from what he could see, "Most people was fighting." Eventually, police began to swarm onto the campus, and White said the students began fighting the officers, who responded with their batons.

"I was in the corner, just watching," he said. "I saw a girl get hit by the police and she went down."

Senior Victor Wong, 18, said the brawl grew out of a fight two days earlier between a Latino student and an African American student. Wong said Latino students who are friends of his asked him to participate in a fight planned for Friday that was to pit 10 Latino students against 10 African American students.

"It was a crew-on-crew thing," he said, referring to graffiti gangs. "They asked for my help, but I'm graduating," he said. "I'm done with all that."

Wong said the two groups of instigators met as planned at the school's handball courts, and "all of them started going at it." Within seconds, he said, the fight escalated beyond the original two groups, and people began running throughout the campus fighting.

"They would finish one place and run to another corner and fight," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 0185.story

"Security didn't know where to go," Wong added. "They'd concentrate in one spot and something would happen somewhere else. This is the worst I've seen."

Minor injuries at the scene were treated by the school nurse and L.A. Fire Department personnel. No one required hospitalization, the school district said. There were, however, some descriptions of students being badly beaten.



Photos: Locke High School brawlWong said he saw one student beaten unconscious on a handball court. Sherlock said he saw one Latino student walking along Saint Street, the road that bisects the campus, when he was surrounded by a large group of black students who began hitting and kicking him. "He was bleeding real bad," Sherlock said. "When they stood him up, he kind of collapsed back down."

Sherlock, who is a member of the Black Student Union and the school's new House of Representatives, which was formed to help guide the transition from traditional school to charter, added that he had tried to stop the fighting, but to little effect. After securing order, authorities rounded up the students who hadn't returned to class and segregated them by race, holding Latinos in the boys gym and African American students in Hobbs Hall, the school's multipurpose room.

Beginning at 2 p.m., school officials began releasing students in small groups to go home. The school remained on lockdown until the last group had left about 3:15 p.m.

LAUSD's Cox said that there would be an enhanced police presence at Locke during school hours next week and that the district would send human relations staff to the school to talk to students.

In recent years, melees have broken out periodically at many campuses with a black and Latino presence, including in Los Angeles, Lynwood and Compton. There have been fights between Latinos and Armenians in other areas that led to campus lockdowns.

In nearly all cases, no serious injuries have resulted, but the incidents have frightened students and parents, marred the reputation of schools and hindered the learning of students who frequently already face substantial academic challenges.

"How do you build anything here when something happens and adds to the negativity?" asked band leader Smith.

howard.blume@latimes.com

mitchell.landsberg@latimes. com

Times staff writer Jessica Garrison contributed to this report.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... ory?page=2

Watching FOX News in lAs Vegas, An Assistant Superintendent (LAUSD) was interviewed and he indicated that it was a Brown vs Black brawl!

Originally Posted by SicNTiredInSoCal

Originally Posted by america4

Just saw on CNN that the police separated the groups
black and brown and it is racially and Gang motivated.

No surprise there. Black and mexicans have long hated each other and if IA's continue to steal their jobs and shoot at them just because of thier skin color-it's only gonna get worse.

The murder of Jamiel Shaw won't soon be forgotten.

I would tend to think if Blacks and Latinos hated each other so much, there's no way Latinos would move into Black neighborhoods. If Blacks hated Latinos so much, these riots would have started a long time ago -like maybe when the school had more Blacks students than Latino. The Jamiel Shaw murder gave us a clear picture of how some Mexicans get cocky, but ONLY after making sure they have the advantage. It's only a matter of time before a race riot too big to be downplayed by the media starts.

After securing order, authorities rounded up the students who hadn't returned to class and segregated them by race, holding Latinos in the boys gym and African American students in Hobbs Hall, the school's multipurpose room.

This was definitely a race issue. Even if it was also about gang stuff, that gang stuff is about which race they are in.

This why my kids will no longer participate in public schools.

Originally Posted by MadInChicago

Dose anyone have a connection with or to Ted Hayes?
I'd really trust his feedback above all news, or any government statements.

I met him at the local Immigration conformance in Grays Lake, IL. Actually as it turned out I sat across of him at the breakfast before the conference. (He was one of the speakers that day). And based on the conversation then, I would believe his views of the situation above all others. He is there and he knows what the problems are in his community.

Come to think about, W, you were seated next to Ted at the breakfast, do you still communicate with him? I think you would agree with me that Ted is in the middle of this, and would produce the most accurate report.

Yes, I'm in regular contact with Ted. I now consider him a dear friend. We are working together on some action on these issues.

W

This just in from Ted.

--

“…In Distressâ€

I found this on the internet while researching Locke High School

Posted on Friday, November 19, 2004 9:35:28 PM
KABC TV 7: Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES — A fight between two Jordan High School students Friday led to a blacks-Latinos brawl that police said may have involved up to 1,000 people, including some gang members who came on campus for the fracas.

"...School police called for assistance from Los Angeles police, who donned helmets and quickly restored order on the 2,600-student campus in the 2400 block of East 103rd Street..."

"Capt. Sergio Diaz of the Los Angeles Police Department said several hundred people were involved, possibly as many as 1,000.

A youth said it started in one place, then spread throughout the campus. When all was said and done four students had been arrested, one for allegedly kicking a school police lieutenant in the mouth, and three for disobeying orders to disperse, said Ellen Morgan of Los Angeles Unified. Four students also were treated for minor injuries, as were three school police officers, she said..."

W thanks for the info from Ted, and good to hear you two stay in touch. That tells us the accuracy of the reports from Ted comes to us without questionable alterations.

Also, for those folks that didn’t know, Ted is running for Congress (as he puts it);
END THE REIGN OF "QUEEN" MAXINE WATERS!

http://www.tedhayestocongress.com/index.php?PID=home