EAST HIGH MELEE

By JOE GORMAN and DENISE DICK

news@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Students and police inside East High School when a series of fights broke out Tuesday morning all agree that the scene was chaotic.

Brenda Kimble, school board president, said the fight that led to early dismissal Tuesday and the school being closed today started over a pair of scuffed shoes.

More than two dozen officers responded to the school after a fight about 11:10 a.m. that was broken up, then escalated into a series of several other fights – resulting in chemical spray being used to help control those brawling.

At least five students were taken to the Martin P. Joyce Juvenile Justice Center on charges of disorderly conduct. Lt. Ramon Cox, head of the department’s Family Investigative Services Unit, who will spearhead the investigation, said the charges could be upgraded after the students are interviewed by investigators.

Several students, who said they were not fighting, said they still were hit by chemical spray, with some complaining they were sprayed directly by police. Others said they were in a lower level of the school and the chemical cloud fell upon them.

Despite the complaints, not one student was seen to be transported by paramedics or treated by medical personnel who were both at the scene.

“It was crazy,” said freshman Dasean McRae. “Every five minutes someone was running into the office saying there was another fight.” He said the situation was tense, but he wasn’t scared.

Junior Torrence Mosley said he was throwing punches, too, after someone hit him, and at one point he said he was tackled by a teacher and then sprayed by a police officer.

“I was getting jumped,” Mosley said.

Sophomore Isiah Helms described a series of fights, then becoming sickened by the cloud of chemical spray.

Cox said investigators don’t yet know what started the fights, but he believes after enough people were engaged, others decided to begin fighting because it was their chance to attack someone they didn’t like.

“It seemed like people were fighting just because there was a fight,” Cox said.

District records show 715 students attend East.

Both Cox and officer Rick Baldwin, who was pulled off a South Side beat to help control the problem at East, said the fights at East are among the worst they’ve seen. Both have been on the police department since the 1990s.

“Every time you turned around there was another fight,” Cox said.

The situation outside the school in the parking lot area was also chaotic. There were students and parents crying and swearing in English and Spanish.

Students were permitted to leave with a parent, and parents signed them out at a table that was set up at the entrance. For those who did not have parents to pick them up, buses were called to take the students home.

For the last several weeks, problems at East have been a topic of discussion by some school board members as well as community groups.

Last month, the Youngstown Chapter of the NAACP requested a meeting with school board and district officials and parents to talk about problems at the school.

Jimma McWilson, chairman of the group’s education committee, renewed that request at Tuesday’s regular school board meeting.

“This did not just happen,” he said.

If students had the books they need for class and had teachers and students not been frustrated with each other, McWilson said he doesn’t think the fighting would have happened.

He was also critical of the police response.

“These were military archetype at East today,” McWilson said. “You need to think about what’s happening.”

Sabrina Brandon is an East alumna whose granddaughter is a student there.

“Was all that Mace necessary?” she said. “My granddaughter has sickle cell [anemia], and she was sprayed with Mace.”

Adults need to be there for their children and for each other’s children, too, Brandon said.

“If we don’t stand up for our kids, what is our next generation going to look like?” she said.

Some board members have talked of concerns about the behavior of a few students at East disrupting the education of many.

Kimble said she’s upset about what happened.

“We have to do something,” she said.

If some students aren’t in school to be educated, the district has to determine how best to work with those students.

“I have parents – and students, too – who call me,” complaining because other students are disrupting those who want to learn.

But a special meeting with the NAACP isn’t likely.

“We have so much to work on,” Kimble said.

The board is working to save the district, the board president said, referring to the legislation that calls for a chief executive officer to operate the schools.

The board will, however, continue its periodic community meetings scheduled throughout the city. That will allow any group with concerns to bring them to the board’s attention.

“That’s a more fair way to do it,” Kimble said.

Interim Superintendent Stephen Stohla said the East students seem to be unable to get along with each other.

“The kids are respectful to me,” Stohla said. “They just don’t like each other.”

When asked how that could be changed, Stohla said he was not sure. He said efforts are being made to work with the students and their parents to improve the situation, but for the short term he said he did not have an answer.

“I think kids are angry here,” Stohla said. “I don’t know why.”

One parent, who said she did not want to send her children back to East, is McRae’s mother, Glorise Richardson. Standing with McRae and her daughter, who is a junior, Richardson said her son called her and asked her to pick him up.

She said her children are brought up to behave and learn.

“It’s hard to send your kids out the door when society can’t get along,” Richardson said.