Fight breaks out at Sumner High; Guards mace students
A noon-time fight at Sumner High School sent as many as two dozen students home after security guards sprayed mace to quell the brawlers.
Freshman Deyon Smith, 15, said he had just thrown his food away, and was about to walk out of the cafeteria when multiple guards broke through a circle of gawkers to stop three or four male students throwing punches near one of the cafeteria doors.
“They were trying to break up the fight, and they just started macing everyone,” Deyon said.
He wasn’t close to the fight, but the mace got him, too, he said. “At first, I couldn’t see. My vision was a blur,” he said. “It was burning my nose and mouth and eyes. I couldn’t breath.”
Deyon thought as many as 100 in the cafeteria may have been affected. He called his father to come get him, and he said about 25 other students were waiting out in front of the north St. Louis school, too.
When Smith’s father, Deyon Smith I, got there, kids were outside coughing and hacking, some crying, he said. “It angers me real bad,” he said. “When you’ve got security guards all up and down the school, you’ve got enough people to break up a fight. You don’t need to mace kids. You’re making more trouble than is already started.”
UPDATE: District officials have pinned down some details.
Security guards will now be the targets. And they’ll have it coming.
Teach the kids not to act like animals and they will never be maced.
Mr. Deyon Smith I, where’s the outrage for the houligans WHO CAUSED THE WHOLE SITUATION?!?!
“Teach the kids not to act like animals and they will never be maced.”
Not at all true. Just wait till they’re at their first protest and the cops do the same thing.
Or they get pulled over by a cop who just got his Internal Affairs paperwork and needs to let off some steam.
Or they happen to be eating lunch next week and the same thing happens again. Even though they’re not involved.
This is chemical warfare people. We banned such tactics against enemy troops and POWs, but we allow it in our schools?
Why does everything have to get blown out of proportion? These kids deserved what they got.
Mitch you have no clue. These kids are out of control and you are probably one of the reasons they are.
I’ve done Teach for America in 3 cities (NYC, Chicago, and here). All my placements have been in poor areas, with the “worst kids.” I worked in elementary schools, not high schools. I tried to prevent kids from becoming hallway brawlers.
What exactly what you have done to help prevent the thuggery, Steve?
Yep, standard parent behavior. Instead of being upset with the students who caused the fight and were fighting - disrupting his son’s education and safety, blame the security guards for using mace! Maybe the guards have gotten smarter and don’t want to get stabbed or shot. Hey Dad, why not go down the street to the parents of the kids fighting and ask them have their LOSER children control themselves in school? Talk to the parents and quit blaming the schools who are trying to make this pit-of-humanity safe for your kid! There’s only so much the school can do and it sounds like they’re doing it! Blame the LOSERS and their PARENTS!
City schools are out of control and something has to be done. I think it is a shame that I live in the Central West End, a neighborhood with one of the highest real estate tax base and my neighborhood high school is Summner. I will not send my teenagers to a war zone. It is ridiculous that is the only choice since we did not win the Magnet School lottery.
Our law makers need to make note and make some changes to ensure our kids are safe and afforded the opportunity to get educated. Right now they are failing. It is no wonder that the mass is leaving the city.
to Mitch: “Steve” shouldn’t have to do anything to raise these kids to not be thugs - that’s the PARENT’S JOB! DUH! If the parent’s don’t care at all for the kids, why should other people put themselves in harm’s way? When are you going to start expecting PARENTS to step up and quit bashing everyone else?