Posted on 09/08/2001 4:19:02 AM PDT by Captain Shady
Four Gaffney High students were arrested following what police described as a gang fight Thursday morning at school that left three teachers and two students injured.
School Resource Officer Johnny Miller said Terry Wood, 17, of 157 Concord Heights, and Kyle Tate, 18, of 3102 Old Georgia Hwy., waited outside a math classroom at 10:20 a.m. for a 15-year-old student to go to his next class. When the bell rang and the students started filing out of the classroom, Wood and Tate attacked the juvenile, striking him in the head and body several times with their fists, Miller said.
The heavy rings Wood and Tate were wearing cut the 15-year-old’s head, School Resource Officer Theresa Bennett said. Bennett said the juvenile did not attempt to defend himself. “He was really brave. He didn’t fight back because he knew the consequences of fighting in school,” Bennett said.
Several teachers on hall duty tried to intervene while they waited for Miller and Bennett to arrive, including math teachers Phillip Robbs, Jonathan (Todd) Gardner and Coach Ansel Belue.
All three were shoved repeatedly during the conflict, Miller said. Robbs suffered a cut to his left hand, while Belue suffered a broken hand and Gardner was treated for bruises to his arms.
Miller, who was on the other side of the building, said he arrived after a couple of minutes and attempted to handcuff Woods, but said Woods elbowed Robbs in the ribs, hit a 16-year-old student who was standing nearby in the face with his fist, and ran away. The blow left the 16-year old with a contusion on his left temple, the officer said.
Meanwhile, Bryan Tate, 17, of 3102 Old Georgia Highway, and a 16-year-old student refused to get out of the way of Miller and the teachers after being ordered to do so by the officer, Miller said. The juvenile, Miller said, told the teachers to “get the (expletive) away from (him)” when they tried to calm him down.
Wood, whom Miller eventually caught and arrested after Wood took several wild swings at him, knocked Robbs to the floor and was trying to fight him, looked at another student and told him, “You’re next,” Miller said.
The incident left blood smeared on the clothes of several teachers and students standing in the math wing of the high school, Miller said.
The entire incident lasted about five minutes. Miller said Wood and Tate called the 15-year-old Wednesday night and told him they were going to beat him up at school. The officer said the 15-year-old failed to notify police or school administrators of the alleged threat. “If he had, we could have been there (to protect him) sooner,” Miller said.
Miller said the confrontation involved a brewing street dispute between two rival gangs.
The two students accused of attacking the 15-year-old and the two who Miller said refused to leave the area were arrested and transported to the Cherokee County Detention Center.
The 16-year-old was released on a custodial promise and the other three were booked in to jail. All four will be suspended, Miller said. The officer said he will recommend Wood be expelled.
Wood is charged with resisting arrest, assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, disturbing school, inciting a riot, lynching, making threats, two counts of assault and battery and three counts of assault on a school official.
Kyle Tate is charged with assault and battery, inciting a riot, lynching and disturbing school. Bryan Tate and the 16-year-old are charged with disturbing school.
We have already informed our son that he will not be punished for fighting back.
Nobody should have to take an @ss beating like that.
I agree . I graduated from Gaffney High back 1978 ,two years after the actress,Andie MacDowell .During my last year there , a race-riot occured there at the school.
Rather then stick around ,I quickly found my sister and a cousin and promptly left the school grounds .We did not go back to the school until order was restored.
Best for them if they never tell my son that he can't defend himself .Way its going ,I might prefer not to have him ther at Gaffney High.
Yes, he WAS expelled from public school last year. Doesn't that imply that the private schools are filled with public school rejects?
Being that I've only had kids in 6 public school systems in 4 states and 3 private systems in those same states, with a job that placed me in dozens of schools regularly, my limited observations are that all schools are NOT created equally. The school is representative of the population form which it draws. No one likes to say it, but sometimes there's a definate 'garbage in-garbage out' function. LOw IQ, poorly motivated, non-achieving parents are not likely to produce kids that are any better than that. I could often predict test scores based on zip codes.
Some private schools are filled with drugged kids who are too fragile for pubilc schools, kids who are too disruptive for public school, and kids whose parents have the moeny to make it look like they care (sheer snob appeal).
Some teachers in private schools have problems that they take out on the students. Some are drawn to the private school setting to exercise their power and authority in unhealthy ways.
It would also be erroneous to equate private school with conservative thought. Consider the private school that banned Mother's Day because it didn't want to offend kids with homosexual parents/custodians. And you probably know that in south Florida many private schools are NOT conservatively oriented.
Just as it is wrong to slam homeschooling for what Andrea Yates did, and it is wrong to slam private schools for what the kid in Pensacola did, it is also wrong to slam every public school, kids, parents and teachers, for the acts of a minority.
Isn't "news", by definition, a departure from the norm? If one only looks at the departures from them it is easy to extrapolate those events as the norm. The Million Moms and Sarah Brady do it.
The school choice movement is not about conservatives taking over education. It is about freedom. And that means there will be as many liberal private schools as parents want.
it is also wrong to slam every public school, kids, parents and teachers, for the acts of a minority.
A minority is not to blame for the problems with government education. It is over 2.5 million union teachers with an annual war chest of over $240 million dollars who have politicized, dumbed down and, in general, wrecked state sponsored education.
My, we've moved off of the behavioural aspect of the student into a new topic!
I would not disagree with you about the wasted money and the problems with the teacher's union. It is very disappointing that Bush overfunded the DoE. The Feds have absolutely no business in the field of education. Schools and education issues should be at the local level.
I'm certainly in favor of school and parental choice. I've put my kids in private school when I thought they could do a better job and removed them from private schools when I lost confidence in a private school. When relocating, I shop schools first and foremost.
My biggest beef in all of these threads is the tendency to take a news item and then make a general smear against anyone involved with a public school. This is never done on FR against private schools or homeschools. It is simply too easy to take cheap shots at public schools and against the FR paradigm to say anything against private of homeschools. (yes, virginia, there is a FR pc vocabluary!) The truth is that there is good AND bad in each situation and we should strive for fairness in the way we apply our criticisms.
I am not accusing you specifically of anything, I'm only making general comments.
My sister sent this article to me .She said these troubles had a lot to do with her decision to home-school her children.
Her daughter had bully problems once and tried to fight back .The school officials tried to expell her for fighting back.They said they,the school officials expected better of her.My sister informed them that they weren't expelling her daughter for fighting back.Guess what,my sister won that argument after a heated exchange ,lots of eye-contact,and threats of legal action against the school.
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