What started off as a minor school lunch fight escalated quickly to an all out cafeteria brawl, which lead to three students from Central High School in PG County being hospitalized. According to Fox 5 News, the fight that took place on Dec. 16 worried students, staff and parents, resulting in further investigation to discover the true motivation behind the violence.
Some have speculated that the fight may have broken out as the result of racial tensions. Spectators of the fight stated that the two opposing sides were composed of a large number of African Americans on one side and Hispanic students on the other.
However, nothing is 100 percent certain, as some students stated to Fox 5 that they don’t believe any racial division is present at Central High and other factors may have influenced the brawl.
Students fighting showed no remorse as the video footage recorded on a student’s cellphone revealed participants of the fight throwing punches left and right, kicking, stomping and chairs being tossed around, almost identical to a WWE match one would find on television. There was no sign of an end to the violence until three adults stepped in to break it up.
So far the only form of action that has been taken by the school is the expulsion of the main aggressors according to two students, as well as an address to parents of students and an assembly in which all students attended the following Monday.
It appears that school fights have been breaking out in a larger frequency each year with social media serving as a platform to view them. The days of being a decent human being and jumping in to help are long gone, and the era of whipping out your phone to record while yelling, “WORLDSTAR,” is among us.
Today, results of the actual fight aren’t of the most importance to people, but it’s the exploitation of the fight to see who can get the most views and likes on Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, etc. that people care about the most. “It’s a sad world we live in where people hide behind their phones during a fight,” senior Jay Nenadovic said. “I’ve even seen a kid watch while his friend was getting jumped instead of jumping in to help.”
Within the last couple of years, fights have broken out here, some of which have made it to social media for the whole world to see. Last school year on March 3, 2016 graduate, Garrett Hardy, recorded a fight between two girls during class and posted it on Twitter.
The altercation between the two students caught the attention of students here and twitter users everywhere, picking up 442 retweets and 607 likes. “ I saw the fight when Garrett posted it, I thought it was pretty funny. I’m surprised how much it blew up on Twitter though,” senior Sean Ainloo said.
According to the MCPS policies and regulations, located on their website, on bullying harassment and intimidation, fighting can be punished by suspension, expulsion or even arrest if police are on the scene. This proved to be the case with the boys from Central High.
Alex Bellot
Sports Editor
