by concerned
Sunday, Apr. 17, 2005 at 1:56 AM
forcedconformity@hotmail.com
As of yet, La Sierra / Tyler districts of Riverside are no where near as bad as places like Eastside--where, you absolutely will get jumped for being the wrong color [between brown / black] for even just walking on the wrong side of the street b/c the turfs are so defined.
But, if community members, parents, and students do not take direct action soon, we may very well be on our way to such a demise in other parts of Riverside.
Race riots have been spreading in this part of town--from the big Castle Park incident on Valentines Day, to the La Sierra High shut downs the following week, and now this incident at Norte Vista which involved HUNDREDS, far more than the 15 students the press enterprise declares were involved.
The District position continues to be to SUPRESS discussion about this as a tactic to calm the situation while simultaneously increasing police presence on campuses.
Students need a space & opportunity to dialogue about this, come to their own solutions, and even receive trauma counseling for the violence they repeatedly face by simply showing up for school each day.
nortevsta_student_helddown_by_police.jpg, image/jpeg, 216x375
Uncensored Reporting of today's incidents at Norte Vista High School (all names excluded):
At least a dozen or more police squadrons arrived on site, with helicopter following overhead to continue to control the situation.
One student described the scene as two very distinct massive lines of students--brown vs. black, formed during late morning break, appearing "like the old days, like battle formation" as the fighting was launched.
Repeated rumors of guns being involved were spreading, though people seemed in concensous that no gun was fired.
Other students described rushing into the fight trying to grab their younger brother(s), or cousins, smaller in size, and getting punched or socked several times before they'd loose sight of their loved one entirely in the massive braul. Versions of this story were told by *many* students.
Shortly after the fight was quieted, the whole school went on "lock down" for over the length of 2 whole periods, running into the lunch time. Police officers and administrators searched through classrooms, according to several other students, pulling out all sorts of students based on what appeared to looks alone.
Then, with no discussion addressing the student body about what had just happened, students were released for a late lunch only to fight several more pockets of fights breaking out throughout the lunch period and into the end of the day.
Submerged in white-washing public schools with little opportunity for deviance between the assimilation system--their options are clear: assimilate to the White Corporate Machine, or find ways to rebel that are too often in the form of gangs, drugs, etc.
The policing on school campuses continues to rise, with gang profiling a big part of the "remedy". And, those who do not succeed academically, are already pushed down the rode of criminalization simply by the way the are profiled and treated by the schools when they fail to succeed or accept their limited educational options.
Uniform education standards set out for an entire country--REGARDLESS of students' actual needs, is not serving the youth of our society. Instead, it is nurturing the corporate greed machine in producing compliant workers to enter the workforce, and channeling the rest into crime and prisons to keep one of the nation's best kept secret industries in business: the PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.
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PRESS ENTERPRISE ARTICLE:
Students arrested in campus scuffles
RESPONSE: Police go to Norte Vista High in Riverside because of fights.
12:30 AM PDT on Saturday, April 16, 2005
By SONJA BJELLAND / The Press-Enterprise
RIVERSIDE - A fight involving about 15 students at Norte Vista High School in Riverside prompted officials to lock down campus Friday morning.
About 10 a.m., students took their first nutritional break of the day and a skirmish erupted, said Principal Santos Campos. At least three students had minor injuries, ranging from bruises to an eyebrow ring being pulled out.
"This had to be done in the name of safety," Campos said of the lockdown as he spoke to a group waiting at the school's main entrance.
Silvia Flores / The Press-Enterprise
Riverside police Officer Felix Sorio, left, tries to control a fight Friday at Norte Vista High School in Riverside, while Detective Ken Tutwiler takes down a boy.
Students said the fight evolved from a racial comment made during a party at Incahoots, a dance club in La Sierra, last week.
On Thursday night, police broke up a potential fight at a nearby park. Riverside police Lt. Ed Blevins said investigators are determining if that factored into Friday's scuffle.
"We don't know what the motivation was at this time," Blevins said Friday morning.
Police arrived on campus Friday shortly after school officials quelled the fight. Students were held in classrooms for an extended third period and the campus activities resumed at lunch. A few more incidents occurred at lunch as tensions ran high.
Police arrested at least three boys, Blevins said. A few of the students involved recently had transferred from La Sierra High School, he said.
Parents arrived at the campus to pick up students who had notified them. Some called for increased supervision during the breaks. Campos said schools officials would review the security plan in the wake of the fight.
Von Foot arrived to pick up her children after her daughter called and said someone had hit her. She said she has heard concerns about racial issues in the past but this was the first big incident. After taking her daughter home, she returned to pick up her son.
"I don't want something to happen to him," she said as she left with her son.
Ninth-grader Mark Castillo said he became involved in the fight as it spread. Mark, who was not arrested, said he was disturbed by the number of times other fighters hit girls and was surprised it exploded that way.
"I don't think it was a racial thing," he said as his dad was taking him home. "It was just friend on friends and enemies."