It's interesting how after a few weeks of not writing anything, life has been very busy and exciting (in good ways), I gotta write about some crazy stuff like being witness to the latest high school racially-motivated brawl at 41st and Compton.
And what was I doing in South Central, you ask?
I was volunteering. Jefferson High had been having race-brawls lately and people were getting really concerned. Because I work for my non-profit, we are compelled to intervene and mobilize the community to speak up about their concerns and needs. There had been two previous student riots here prior to today. This marks the third but the second largest one. The largest one was the first one.
I volunteered for work to do outreach in the neighborhood (stuff envelopes) and at around 12:38 PM, between 4th and 5th period, a fight broke out in the middle of school and kids started running out of classrooms. Teachers panicked and started screaming for the kids to go inside a classroom, any classroom, and lock the door. The whole place went on lockdown and turned into an impromptu prison.
I was in a very safe place along with my co-worker and some student volunteers but we heard the craziness outside. But we got a very good view of the front door. We saw everything from parents banging on the front door, going ballistic because their kids were locked inside, to cops wearing riot helmets marching to the front to make the parents and neighborhood people to back off the main entrance.
Kids ran into our safe place bawling and shaking. Teachers ran crying from fright too.
Strangely enough, I was calm. I really shouldn't be since when I went into the school carrying papers and boxes, I didn't pass through any metal detectors. It would've been really easy for a kid to bring a gun to school. They had no way of preventing it.
We were in a room that had a television and we had enough foresight to bring snacks and water for us and our volunteers (our water we willingly gave to the LAPD after we got our share). So as we watched the 3:00 PM news, we saw another brawl sprout up in front of the school live on television. Cops got in the middle to stop the brawl. We could hear the shouting and pandemonium outside. On TV, the newscaster was announcing that the brawl started up again. We saw the kid getting handcuffed and escorted back into the entrance. I looked outside the window, through the metal grates, and saw the self-same kid on TV walk past our window. Surreal, yes. Definitely.
Thankfully, the school calmed down enough that we got out of there and when I got back to the office, my boss expressed his worry for me. A few minutes after the initial brawl and the first announcement of the lockdown, I called my boss's line and left a message. It was left in my trademark very pleasant, "Oh! We're just fine!" tone of voice.
"Oh hey there, (my boss)! I just want to let you know that there's a race riot going on here at Jefferson and we're in lockdown. The cops are out here in full force but we're okay. We're in a very safe place. We have food--well, junk food and water. I'll let you know when we can get out of here and I'll see you at the office! Bye~!"
He was clucking over me like some mother hen when I finally stepped into our office at 4:00 PM. Our other boss, the one who sent us to Jefferson to volunteer, rushed us into her office to debrief us on what happened. She was saying "Oh my God!" and "Oh no!" the whole entire time we recounted our story.
All I gotta say is this, the folks down in South L.A have a lot of issues to air out and solve. The news link I posted said it wasn't a racial thing but from what I heard inside the school, it was. Rumor has it a group of Latino kids wanted to jump an African-American kid. Prior to that, the kid who helped us carry our boxes of envelopes to our safe place said a bunch of African-American kids jumped him yesterday and he had scars on his face to prove it. Jesus! What are kids doing these days? Stuff like this never happened when I went to school and I spent two years of high school in ghetto Belmont HS (new building under construction on a toxic waste dump). I love the diversity of L.A but that is the issue in the heart of the Jefferson brawls. It's a shame, really.
Here's a news link to the brawl: http://www.nbc4.tv/news/4537004/detail.html
Photos from Inside Jefferson High During Lockdown
The man with the tie framed within the right-most diamond is a reporter. This was a few minutes after the brawl started and the cops swarmed the high school.
Cops beginning to regain control of the situation.
Moving the parents right along. Notice the firetruck. Behind that firetruck are about a few more cop cars and motorcycles.
When some distance was established, the cops started putting police tape around the entrance.
Orderly evacuation of the students finally began when the parents were given sufficient distance.
This is what it looked like when we finally got out. Our vantage point from inside is from the window to the left of the four tall shrubs leaning against the wall to left of the address number. You can see a square profile of it from this photo. Last photo taken. Now how do we get around the police barricades within a two block radius?
