30 Students Involved In Racial Brawl At California High School

CARSON, Calif. — A brawl involving dozens of students that left eight students injured at a Los Angeles-area high school wasn't fueled by conflict between black and Latino students, contrary to initial reports from authorities, school district officials and police said Wednesday night.

"Descriptions of these fights as racially motivated have not been substantiated," LA schools police Chief Steven Zimmerman said in a statement on the melee at Carson High School earlier in the day. "This campus has no current racial issues."

Principal Windy Warren said student leaders at the ethnically diverse campus of more than 3,000 students assured her of the same thing.

"This is a very unusual incident for the Carson campus, which has been very peaceful this entire school year," she said.

At least 30 students traded punches and kicks in a series of fights that erupted in a campus courtyard during a 10 a.m. snack break, said Monica Carazo, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

School police, with assistance from sheriff's deputies, quelled the disturbance.

The brawl left eight students injured, Warren said. Four were taken to hospitals and four were treated by the school nurse. The extent of the injuries of the hospitalized students was not clear.

Seven students were arrested or suspended, the principal said.

The district said in a statement that despite earlier reports, investigators couldn't substantiate that the Wednesday melee at Carson High School was brought on by racial conflict.

Schools police Chief Steven Zimmerman says the ethnically diverse campus of more than 3,000 students "has no current racial issues."

Officials say at least 30 students traded kicks and punches in a quad during a morning snack break before school police and sheriff's deputies intervened.

Principal Windy Warren says eight students were injured, four of them taken to a hospital and the rest treated on campus. She says seven students were arrested or suspended.

The school was placed on modified lockdown with students confined to their classrooms, but they were allowed to go to lunch and were dismissed at the usual time.

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Comments

[ritchieblackmore]

03:51 PM on 04/16/2012

Where is Huffpost's RedVoices, Yellowvoices, Whitevoices, Brownvoices, and Beigevoices???? Do they all not deserve special sections too??????

[NeverRetro]

08:52 AM on 03/10/2012

This is nothing, compared to the hate that Republicans spew at Latinos. Conservatives commit hate crimes against all minority groups everyday, while blacks and Latinos are marching together for immigrant rights and human progress.

[ritchieblackmore]

03:53 PM on 04/16/2012

justice NOW or what?

[GlennWatson]

08:37 PM on 03/08/2012

"This campus has no current racial issues."

Yeah right.

[Nightangle]

07:32 PM on 03/08/2012

"have no current racial problems" - well there is now. 30 students involved Latinos and African Americans.

[grammasher]

03:24 PM on 03/08/2012

The best thing we could do for all of our schools is to break them up. It would be expensive, but no school should have more than one thousand students. Five hundred would be even better. When schools get too big, they're rather difficult to manage.

[3daywkend]

07:21 PM on 03/10/2012

I think 3000 kids in an affluent area school is manageable, but 3000 in South Central LA is a time bomb, especially when you have two ethnic groups in abundance.

[pthesmith]

02:43 PM on 03/08/2012

How do I flag the article as abusive? What's sad is that commenters have no problem jumping on an idea that is clearly refuted in the first line of the article.

[lecloche]

02:00 PM on 03/08/2012

If you want the truth in detail: http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_20121866/carson-high-lockdown-after-racially-motivated-campus-fight

[Crisdean Wulver]

01:59 PM on 03/08/2012

The article says that the brawl wasn't fueled by conflict. So why does the HEADLINE say the opposite.

Huff Post! You're slipping!

>:-(

[Crisdean Wulver]

03:22 PM on 03/08/2012

Oops, I mean to say racial conflict.

[HammerHead0005]

04:42 PM on 03/08/2012

Are we reading the same article? The one on my screen says:

"three arrested in a racially motivated brawl that erupted on a high school courtyard."

"Carazo says the brawl was racially motivated between black and Latino students."

Where do you see it say that it wasn't racially motivated?

[Crisdean Wulver]

04:50 PM on 03/08/2012

A few quotes from the article:

"Descriptions of these fights as racially motivated have not been substantiated," LA schools police Chief Steven Zimmerman said . . . "

" 'This campus has no current racial issues.' Principal Windy Warren said student leaders at the ethnically diverse campus of more than 3,000 students assured her of the same thing."

-

The body of the article provides no evidence to support the conclusion that the brawl was racially motivated. But it does provide evidence to support the conclusion that it wasn't racially motivated. So the headline contradicts the body of the article.

It's an example of poor journalism. Either the headline is right or the article is right. They can't both be right.

[Crisdean Wulver]

05:03 PM on 03/08/2012

Ah! I'll bet I've solved the mystery.

I'll bet the body of the original article matched the headline. But reporters dug a little deeper and found out that there's no conclusive evidence that the brawl was racially motivated, so they wrote a new article to reflect that.

But they forgot to change the headline. And apparently I can see the second article (with the original headline), while you can only see the original article with the original headline.

I'll bet that's it.

:-)

[J Rupel]

01:54 PM on 03/08/2012

Ten a.m. snack break? What the...?

[David Faisel]

02:43 PM on 03/08/2012

Some Hispanics are black. And believe me, they know, because the U.S. is just one locus in the western hemisphere where blacks have been oppressed.

[WomenOnGuard]

12:36 PM on 03/08/2012

Why would they say; "has no current racial issues."? Seems like they had issue with race in the past or they wouldn't state this. Besides what would keep it from happening again?

[22Keys]

11:53 AM on 03/08/2012

I thought the participants were going to be White and Asian. I'm shocked.

[ShellieBell]

09:21 AM on 03/08/2012

Is it me or did this article just repeat the same thing over and over again?

[ssf1183]

11:24 AM on 03/08/2012

Thanks! I thought my coffee hadn't kicked in!

[blackdublin2006]

09:10 AM on 03/08/2012

5 year old get snack breaks.

[Pete Geller]

08:00 AM on 03/08/2012

Obviously too much sugar from the snack break. What time do these kids go to school if they get a snack break at 10am? Wonder what time brunch is...