A fight last week between two English High School students has led to discipline for all those who watched and urged on the fight which was also videoed and placed on You Tube by one of the students who was watching
The 27 students will apparently be suspended from school for one to three days.
The two girls who fought have each been charged with assault and battery, disorderly conduct, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Although a date has not been provided, Lynn police said they will be summoned to Juvenile Court in Lynn where they will be made to answer to the charges against them.
English principal Thomas Strangie was unavailable for comment Monday. He was out with a death in the family, according to Vice Principal Joseph O’Hagan.
A call to Superintendent of Schools Catherine Latham was not returned.
However, Police Chief Kevin Coppinger told the Journal he was troubled about this incident.
“The two girls fighting could have been seriously injured,” he said. “Why didn’t someone call the police a lot sooner?” he added.
He said the length of the altercation between the two girls was, at 8 minutes, shocking.
But he believes that the disciplinary punishments now being handed out are proper given the circumstances.
“I think it is being addressed appropriately. The two combatants summoned into juvenile court is the right thing to do. And the spectators receiving suspensions is also the right thing to do. The truly troubling part for me was that the fight was orchestrated in advance, that the length of the fight and the potential for someone to be seriously injured was problematic and that it took such a long time before anyone called 911. Someone eventually called but it was way too late. Someone should have called much earlier,” he said.
As for the suspensions, they will be handled by the School Department, and most likely during this week.
“School yard fights are nothing new. They’ve gone on for years,” said the chief. “But this fight was organized and watched by a large crowd. I hope such a thing will never happen again,” he added.
Outside of the two combatants, there were no crimes committed otherwise.
The fight took place off the school campus.
According to the chief, there was great coordination between the police department, the school department and the mayor’s office.
View Comments (2)
This is nutty. When I was a kid, a crowd always gathered to watch a fight, whether between girls or boys. Only the fighters got suspended. How foolish to make these two girls into criminals for a schoolyard fight.
This is "truly troubling" and "shocking"? Good grief--you sound like the adults who show up in the last pages of "Lord of the Flies," clucking their tongues over the boys' behavior when they themselves are warriors. You do realize we have warriors in Afghanistan killing and getting killed right now, don't you? Why all this indignation over kids slugging each other?
P.S. Should we punish all the adults who read the news about Afghanistan and Syria and everywhere else adults are hurting each other?