Posted on 12/07/2005 5:15:44 PM PST by BenLurkin
HOUSTON (AP) -- More than two dozen students were arrested Wednesday after a series of fights at a high school between Hurricane Katrina evacuees and local students.
One student suffered a cut under the eye. No other injuries were reported, said Houston Independent School District spokesman Terry Abbott.
Abbott said 15 students involved in the fights - which started between girls in Westbury High's cafeteria and spread to other areas - were from New Orleans. The other 12 charged were from Houston.
One student was charged with assaulting a police officer. The other 26 faced misdemeanor charges of engaging in a riot.
"We have families who are under duress from what happened with the storm," Abbott said, explaining those displaced from New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina have been pushed into an unfamiliar city. "It is natural that a situation like that is going to cause some tension."
Abbott said the district has had other fights break out between students from New Orleans and Houston since more than 475,000 Louisiana residents were relocated to Texas. School officials are doing everything they can to curtail tension, he said. The school system offers counseling and student-parent forums to discuss how to improve student relations.
Nearly 2,500 students attend Westbury, including about 300 who are New Orleans transplants.
The Houston district has taken in more than 5,000 New Orleans students, more than any district outside Louisiana, he said
Can't we all just get along?
How pathetic it is that an educator considers this kind of violence to be "natural" under any circumstances.
Here they are Mr. Nagin. Come and get 'em.
Sounds like they all need to have A-Long-Island Iced tea.
Sounds like the recently arrived groups, one from the south of Houston and the other from the east of Houston, are fighting over the new turf.
I wonder why they can't seem to get ahead in life?
"We have families who are under duress from what happened with the storm."
Sure. This makes sense: you've lost everything, and so you attack the people who take you in and give you what you need. Right. Okay. NOT!!! Between Nagin's whining and the evacuees acting like a**es, it's hard to feel sorry for any of them anymore.
This is the second time this has happened, though I don't think its the same school.
The young folks from Louisiana want to establish a territory in schools
already annexed by Houstonian kids. It's a turf war.
A young man on the local news this evening said "They want to come steppin' here like
they own it, but we already own it. They have to start at the bottom."
Sad but true.
Yep... the turf wars have been ongoing since the students enrolled. I spent some 6 weeks in the Houston area in a motel and you'd see or read in the media of altercations occurring at times. This one does seem to have involved a larger number of students than others I've heard of. One of the early incidents involved the parents getting into it on the sidewalk after being called to the school and a couple of them got arrested also.
I must be clueless: a territory?
"I wonder why they can't seem to get ahead in life?"
I don't.
If they think this sort of behavior is going to impress the admissions committee at MIT, they're WRONG!/s
Me too.
15 students involved in the fights - which started between girls
I don't get this. Girls have 'turf'? As in gangs?
Maybe society is uglier than I imagined.
Iz all 'bout respect, see? No wha ahm sayin', yo? Doan be disprespectin' da bruthas an sistuhs, see? Doan be disrespectin' ma homeys, no wha ahm sayin'? Yo.
Oh my God ...another ISM.
They've had some problems with evacuee students in Baker just north of Baton Rouge. The groups are the 504's vs the 225's. Those are the area codes of NOLA and the Baton Rouge area respectively.
The authorities are trying to cover things up but it's getting out. The crime rate in Baton Rouge is up 50% but they are trying to keep that out of the news too.
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