L.A. student dies after safety team member allegedly does not intervene to try to prevent fight

Los Angeles Times via Yahoo ^ | April 23, 2024 | Howard Blume

[grundle]

After school on April 15, a fight broke out a couple of blocks from Washington Preparatory High School in South L.A. In a cellphone video of the incident, an adult can be heard saying off camera, just before the fight began: "Let them ... fight. If they want to fight, let the ... police [inaudible]. ... I’m not breaking up s—. I don’t give a f—."

The adult who apparently declined to intervene was a member of the "safe passages" program designed to make sure students get to and from school unharmed, according to students and a senior union official.

Less than 10 seconds after the fight began, three shots rang out and a student was struck. He collapsed and was pronounced dead at a hospital.

School district officials referred questions about the incident to the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, which is investigating the shooting, and L.A. Unified provided mixed messages about whether the alleged conduct of the safe-passages staff member was something the district would look into.

The incident in an unincorporated neighborhood near South L.A. is adding fuel to a debate over campus safety in the nation's second-largest school system and the reduced role of school police. Students and community activists — many of them Black — joined by the leadership of the teachers union, have called for the complete dismantling of the school police department. The presence of any officer on a campus, they say, "criminalizes" students, making them targets for potential harassment and undermining the role of school as a nurturing, academically focused environment.

Schools have responded by increasing their reliance on safe passages, in which district staff, volunteers and hired organizations visibly monitor students' routes between home and school. These workers are meant to be easily recognized by the yellow jackets or vests they wear.

[Clutch Martin]

Let’s make Safety Target Teams, any volunteers? Please sign the form at the bottom absolving the school of any legal problems if you are injured, beaten, hospitilized, disabled, or murdered. Thank you for your service and here’s your reflective yellow vest. Good luck!

[thegagline]

Safety is NOT the Safety Officer’s job.*

*Brought to you by the “Gentleman, you can’t fight in the war room department”

[hanamizu]

Washington Preparatory High School

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To me, rightly or wrongly, the school’s name is a tell. I’m sure that no one would call the students there ‘preppies’, especially if a squad of ‘safe-passage’ volunteers has to be deployed to get the young scholars to and from the school.

What is Washington High School preparing its student body for?

Had the volunteer intervened, it is likely he’d have been shot as well. As for calling 911, the deputies will arrive in time to draw a nice chalk outline of where the body likes.

[PLMerite]

[The presence of any officer on a campus...undermining the role of school as a nurturing, academically focused environment.]

And the unrestricted presence of thugs doesn’t ?

[PLMerite]

[Homicide Preparatory High School in South L.A.]

P.S. 187 Homicide High.

[Drew68]

Washington Preparatory High School

New euphemism just dropped. “Prep Students”

[Alberta's Child]

If the school district were to issue an honest public statement it would read something like this:

We encourage this sort of violence among many of our students because it helps raise our average test scores. #WINNING. :-P

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Safety Officer dindu nuffins.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Yes. It is a prep school. They offer "starter" prison cells to prepare the inmates students for their future lives.

[Getready]

Bring out the candles , flowers, and cards , stating, “we are sorry for your loss”. Promises from school officials saying that the safety of the students is their utmost concern.
Another day in LAUSDland.

[ridesthemiles]

BOLTED FROM S CAL IN MAY 1993.

NOT A MINUTE TOO SOON.

[Bullish]

Students and community activists — many of them Black — joined by the leadership of the teachers union, have called for the complete dismantling of the school police department. The presence of any officer on a campus, they say, "criminalizes" students

They only seem to know the law of the jungle.

[PLMerite]

“Regardless of the circumstances, it would be stupid to ever touch a student.”

Exactly. That’s why you see these silly videos of little kids or special-ed children getting handcuffed by the police. The teachers aren’t allowed to touch the kids, and must call the police if they can’t sweet-talk the little miscreants into behaving.

[wintertime]

The “safe passages” person made the right decision.

[lastchance]

“Students and community activists — many of them Black — joined by the leadership of the teachers union, have called for the complete dismantling of the school police department. The presence of any officer on a campus, they say, “criminalizes” students, making them targets for potential harassment and undermining the role of school as a nurturing, academically focused environment.”

Well there ya go. The future Rhodes scholars do have a point.

[Zhang Fei]

[Side note: I was an urban high school teacher for many years. I broke up my share of fights. Got sent to the hospital for my efforts once. That was years ago. Things are much worse now.]

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Things are worse because Obama decided going after students for committing crimes on school property was racist. Too many black students were getting suspended or ending up in juvie. So he had the DOJ sue school districts. Thanks to consent decrees, school superintendents are not having violent students arrested. Now that budding school age criminals know they can do anything they want on school property, they are acting up way beyond what they previously did.

[Zhang Fei]

[In a post Christian, hedonistic, neo pagan decadent culture, there is an indifference to human life. Sorry but many Americans no longer share the commonly held decent values that once formed the country’s unifying consensus. Neither the shooter nor the safety team adult will be held accountable and the dead student will be quickly forgotten.]

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Too broad. This is likely just another underclass black area living down to the standards of its inhabitants. Segregation wasn’t particularly fair, but it kept black elites in close proximity to the underclass, kept them in line. Black elites had to deal with black underclass dysfunction on a day-to-day basis, so had a personal interest in keeping the disorder down. Today, black elites are living in safe white areas, so egg on the violence from a very safe distance, along with lefty suburban whites shielded from the consequences of their ideology.

[metmom]

I have a better idea.

Arrest the perps, no matter what skin color, and bring back the death penalty for murder at the very least.

What with you tube and surveillance videos, there’s a lot less room for doubt when you can watch the perp do the crime.

[Trumpisourlastchance]

This is what a collapsed society and failed nation state look like.

But by all means, ban social media, spy on us & put Israel/Ukraine first.