Suspended boy's return sparks Nanakuli brawl
11 Nanakuli students arrested after campus brawl
A Nanakuli High School student suspended for fighting last week apparently sparked another school brawl yesterday morning when he trespassed onto campus to pick up a relative, school officials said.
The boy was in a car that pulled up at the school's parking lot at about 9:30 a.m., during morning recess, when other students began chasing after him, said school Principal Levi Chang.
More than a dozen police officers, some using pepper spray, responded to the fight, which lasted about 30 minutes and spilled onto Nanakuli Avenue, attracting a large crowd of students and onlookers, officials said.
11 Nanakuli students arrested after brawl
A fight at Nanakuli High School yesterday morning ended with 11 students arrested for disorderly conduct.
School officials say the brawl, which involved two groups of students from ninth and 10th grades, was not gang-related.
No one was injured, and no weapons were used during the fight, the school said.
The students will be suspended until April 2, school officials said. A Honolulu police officer and two more security guards were expected to join the school's six guards today as a precaution.
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Police arrested 11 students -- 10 ninth-graders and one 10th-grader -- for disorderly conduct. No weapons were used in the fight, and classes were not interrupted, according to school officials and police.
Parents were told to meet the arrested students, all of them boys, at the Kapolei police substation, said Michelle Yu, a Honolulu Police Department spokeswoman.
A city ambulance was called to the scene, but it was not needed because there were no injuries, said Bryan Cheplic, spokesman for the city's Emergency Services Department.
The students will be suspended until classes resume April 2 after spring break, school officials said. As a precaution, one HPD officer and two security guards will join six other guards at the school today, Chang said.
He said some parents will meet with school administrators this morning and possibly during the break to talk about the incident.
"We are going try to bring some closure to this and see how we can mend the feelings between the students," Chang said.
The arrests came in the wake of a number of unrelated fights at the Nanakuli Valley campus in the past few weeks, mirroring events that led to the arrest of eight Nanakuli students in February 2005. Those arrests happened during several brawls within a week.
Chang said the school needs more guards to secure the 64-acre campus but noted that Nanakuli High cannot afford to divert money from school programs toward security. He said the school already hires three full-time guards in addition to three guards paid for by the Department of Education.
"You get 200 kids in a circle, it's hard for us to break through," Chang said.
Daniel Kahao, who lives across the street from the school's entry gate, said he has seen or heard of scores of fights in the eight years he has lived at the valley.
"It's just like any other school," he said. "Kids get into fights, you know."
While two groups participated in yesterday's confrontation, Chang said it does not appear it was gang-related.
"Boy, girl; girl, boy. A lot of them are like that," Chang said. "Or, 'He said something about me.' We get a lot of that."
