Fight Club

Yesterday when I went to pick up my son from High school, I was stuck in the line of cars moving slowly toward the back entrance of the school. The car in front of me was parked. Suddenly, a girl got out of a car next to it and ran forward and started beating on a girl who was standing there. I started honking my horn, hoping to draw attention from security. Suddenly an older teenager got out of the car in front of me and hurried to the fighting girls. I thought, "Oh good, she is going to stop the fight." But to my surprise, she joined in to defend the girl who was attacked! Then someone else came to the defense of the girl who started the fight. I was yelling, "Break it up!", but they were ignoring me. I kind of lost track of how many people joined the fight because at this point I was scanning the parking lot looking for anyone from security to come stop it. Finally a young man came and broke it up, and as the perpetrator left the scene, the others yelled something like, "That's what you get for starting it with her." They both got back in their cars. The whole fight lasted like maybe a minute.

At this point I grabbed a piece of paper and pen and wrote down both of their license plates. I picked up my son and drove directly to the office and turned in the paper. I was kind of ranting and raving because I was so angry that there weren't any security out there. I said, "There should be 5 security just for the back parking lot!" The woman at the desk said, "There are only 5 security people total!" I happen to know that only two of those five are men. The other 3 are older women, one of which is about 60 years old. Actually, I think there is another who is about the same age. I've seen them in action before, running across the parking lot to start a fight, and they run about as fast as my dog can walk.... I don't fault them for trying to do their job, but I just think they aren't trained and in good enough physical condition to really do this job.

I think our high school is a tragedy waiting to happen. The other day there was a fight at school that could have quickly turned in to a riot. There were about 50 kids involved! And when I told the office staff about this fight, they told me that the reason there weren't any security personnel around to help was that there were three other fights going on around campus at the same time.

My son said to me, "Why do you get involved? You are nobody!" I told him, "I have a voice, and I have a loud voice! I can write well, and I can speak. I can also rally people behind me. I'm going to speak up and try to get this situation changed!" I intend to do just that. I was going to write an email to our school superintendant, but I have written one once before about this very topic. I think I'm going to visit him in person. We have over 3,000 students in our high school, and with the demographic makeup, there is a lot of racial tension, and gang involvement. If we don't get some better security soon, this school is going to have a tragedy occur. I'm not going to let that happen without a fight on my part!!