S L'Gree
2004-12-04 04:18:06 UTC
*Since many students have cellphones, news of fights quickly spreads to
other campuses, with some students trying to mimic the violence.* Let's see
you blame this on Whitey, Tyrell. All the ofays have split, leaving your
caca-colored kind to content with your hermanos Mexicanos, not to mention
another 100 or so non-White nationalities in the L.A. area.
Schools Beef Up Patrols After Fights
A spate of clashes between Latinos, blacks at three South Los Angeles
campuses takes officials by surprise.
By Hector Becerra, Times Staff Writer
December 3, 2004
A series of violent confrontations over the last two weeks between
black and Latino students at three South Los Angeles high schools has
taken authorities by surprise, raising fears of widening clashes.
Police and school officials have responded with stepped-up patrols in
and around Crenshaw, Manual Arts and Jordan high schools. They hope
the action will calm tensions in an area with a long history of gang
violence and recent ethnic shifts, with once predominantly black
neighborhoods increasingly populated by Latino immigrants.
"There's profound gang issues in some of these communities, and normal
tensions in the communities become problems at the schools because the
schools basically mirror the community," said Edward Woodruff, who
worked in the youth relations and crime prevention unit of the Los
Angeles Unified School District before retiring in June.
The violence began Nov. 19 at Jordan High School when dozens of
students started pummeling one another during lunch as about 200
students watched, police said.
About 60 LAPD officers and up to 40 school district officers
responded, using pepper spray to disperse crowds. Before the incident
ended, a police officer had been knocked down and beaten. Police
arrested three students, and the campus was locked down for hours.
That incident, police believe, inspired a fight three days later
between dozens of black and Latino students after classes were
dismissed at Manual Arts High School. As many as 100 students were
involved in that altercation, and police responded in force with
dozens of officers, as well as police helicopters.
Since then, police and school officials said, scattered fights and
altercations have occurred on and near the campuses. They said that
since many students have cellphones, news of fights quickly spreads to
other campuses, with some students trying to mimic the violence.
The latest incident occurred Monday in front of Crenshaw High School,
when a 15-year-old Latino student had his jaw broken by a group of
black students in what Principal Isaac Hammond described as a "hate
crime." On Tuesday, a student was arrested in connection with the
attack.
Tension and even occasional violent skirmishes between students of
different races or ethnic groups are not unusual, officials said. But
the level of discord spread across three schools has taken officials
by surprise.
"We've been asking ourselves, 'What the heck is going on?' " said
campus police Lt. Michael Bowman. "It doesn't follow any normal
pattern."
Bowman said racially motivated fights are usually clustered around the
first month and a half of the school year - September and October -
when new students come in, or toward the end of the academic year,
when many problem students no longer care whether they get in trouble.
The fights have some students, parents and those who live and work
near the schools on edge.
Meri Avendano, 35, has two sons at Jordan High School, where she
volunteers as an assistant. Since the fight, Avendano said, she has
volunteered to watch the lunch area more and said she worries that the
same problems could be replayed at the local middle school that her
11-year-old daughter attends.
"I think everyone wants to be on top of each other, and sometimes they
get angry because they feel they're at a disadvantage," she said.
Meka Carter, 29, an African American resident of the Jordan Downs
housing project, believes that some of the tensions are linked to
language barriers and intolerance over interracial dating.
Another reason for the tensions is the perception that members of one
group are thriving more than others, Carter says.
Elizabeth Chavez, 17, a Jordan High senior, said most of her
classmates don't have problems with race. "But when two people decide
they don't get along, that's when they go get all their friends and
everybody starts to fight everybody."
She said interracial dating is definitely a source of tension between
the two groups, adding that she knows from experience.
"It's not the easiest thing, because when I was dating a black guy, I
had a lot of racial comments," Chavez said. "Their most common thing
is, 'Stick to your own kind.' "
Jordan High Principal Stephen Strachan said the neighborhood's
problems with gangs, poverty and crime spill into the school.
"The school is the community," Strachan said.
He said he was particularly disturbed that the violence at his high
school sent the community the message that there was racial strife on
campus. It "was unfortunate because people played on it. And I hope
we're not getting copy-cat incidents as a result."
In the wake of the various incidents, campus police have been
temporarily redeployed from local middle schools, other parts of the
city and other shifts to bolster patrols at the three schools and
their neighborhoods.
Crenshaw High School has seven police officers patrolling the campus
area instead of the usual two, and the other two schools have six
officers in the campus area instead of two.
Officials at Jordan are trying to deal with the problems directly.
More than 200 residents, ministers and law enforcement officials
attended meetings organized by the school Wednesday to discuss making
the school and the neighborhood safer.
Avendano said at one of the meetings that ultimately, the
responsibility to ensure that students behave and respect their peers
rests with parents.
She pointed to her 4-year-old son to make her point.
"If I tell him, 'See that black guy, don't hang around with him, he'll
do something to you,' then what am I doing? What kind of a lesson am I
teaching him?"
other campuses, with some students trying to mimic the violence.* Let's see
you blame this on Whitey, Tyrell. All the ofays have split, leaving your
caca-colored kind to content with your hermanos Mexicanos, not to mention
another 100 or so non-White nationalities in the L.A. area.
Schools Beef Up Patrols After Fights
A spate of clashes between Latinos, blacks at three South Los Angeles
campuses takes officials by surprise.
By Hector Becerra, Times Staff Writer
December 3, 2004
A series of violent confrontations over the last two weeks between
black and Latino students at three South Los Angeles high schools has
taken authorities by surprise, raising fears of widening clashes.
Police and school officials have responded with stepped-up patrols in
and around Crenshaw, Manual Arts and Jordan high schools. They hope
the action will calm tensions in an area with a long history of gang
violence and recent ethnic shifts, with once predominantly black
neighborhoods increasingly populated by Latino immigrants.
"There's profound gang issues in some of these communities, and normal
tensions in the communities become problems at the schools because the
schools basically mirror the community," said Edward Woodruff, who
worked in the youth relations and crime prevention unit of the Los
Angeles Unified School District before retiring in June.
The violence began Nov. 19 at Jordan High School when dozens of
students started pummeling one another during lunch as about 200
students watched, police said.
About 60 LAPD officers and up to 40 school district officers
responded, using pepper spray to disperse crowds. Before the incident
ended, a police officer had been knocked down and beaten. Police
arrested three students, and the campus was locked down for hours.
That incident, police believe, inspired a fight three days later
between dozens of black and Latino students after classes were
dismissed at Manual Arts High School. As many as 100 students were
involved in that altercation, and police responded in force with
dozens of officers, as well as police helicopters.
Since then, police and school officials said, scattered fights and
altercations have occurred on and near the campuses. They said that
since many students have cellphones, news of fights quickly spreads to
other campuses, with some students trying to mimic the violence.
The latest incident occurred Monday in front of Crenshaw High School,
when a 15-year-old Latino student had his jaw broken by a group of
black students in what Principal Isaac Hammond described as a "hate
crime." On Tuesday, a student was arrested in connection with the
attack.
Tension and even occasional violent skirmishes between students of
different races or ethnic groups are not unusual, officials said. But
the level of discord spread across three schools has taken officials
by surprise.
"We've been asking ourselves, 'What the heck is going on?' " said
campus police Lt. Michael Bowman. "It doesn't follow any normal
pattern."
Bowman said racially motivated fights are usually clustered around the
first month and a half of the school year - September and October -
when new students come in, or toward the end of the academic year,
when many problem students no longer care whether they get in trouble.
The fights have some students, parents and those who live and work
near the schools on edge.
Meri Avendano, 35, has two sons at Jordan High School, where she
volunteers as an assistant. Since the fight, Avendano said, she has
volunteered to watch the lunch area more and said she worries that the
same problems could be replayed at the local middle school that her
11-year-old daughter attends.
"I think everyone wants to be on top of each other, and sometimes they
get angry because they feel they're at a disadvantage," she said.
Meka Carter, 29, an African American resident of the Jordan Downs
housing project, believes that some of the tensions are linked to
language barriers and intolerance over interracial dating.
Another reason for the tensions is the perception that members of one
group are thriving more than others, Carter says.
Elizabeth Chavez, 17, a Jordan High senior, said most of her
classmates don't have problems with race. "But when two people decide
they don't get along, that's when they go get all their friends and
everybody starts to fight everybody."
She said interracial dating is definitely a source of tension between
the two groups, adding that she knows from experience.
"It's not the easiest thing, because when I was dating a black guy, I
had a lot of racial comments," Chavez said. "Their most common thing
is, 'Stick to your own kind.' "
Jordan High Principal Stephen Strachan said the neighborhood's
problems with gangs, poverty and crime spill into the school.
"The school is the community," Strachan said.
He said he was particularly disturbed that the violence at his high
school sent the community the message that there was racial strife on
campus. It "was unfortunate because people played on it. And I hope
we're not getting copy-cat incidents as a result."
In the wake of the various incidents, campus police have been
temporarily redeployed from local middle schools, other parts of the
city and other shifts to bolster patrols at the three schools and
their neighborhoods.
Crenshaw High School has seven police officers patrolling the campus
area instead of the usual two, and the other two schools have six
officers in the campus area instead of two.
Officials at Jordan are trying to deal with the problems directly.
More than 200 residents, ministers and law enforcement officials
attended meetings organized by the school Wednesday to discuss making
the school and the neighborhood safer.
Avendano said at one of the meetings that ultimately, the
responsibility to ensure that students behave and respect their peers
rests with parents.
She pointed to her 4-year-old son to make her point.
"If I tell him, 'See that black guy, don't hang around with him, he'll
do something to you,' then what am I doing? What kind of a lesson am I
teaching him?"