Schools Blame ‘Other Side’ for Brawl : Football: Although Inglewood and Hawthorne schools punish their own teams in the aftermath of last week’s melee, both say their players didn’t start it.

Jennifer Aranda had just finished cheering the Hawthorne High School sophomore football team to a 25-0 victory over Inglewood High last Thursday when she found herself in the middle of a stampede of warring players.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’ ” she said. “I saw people pushing people, name calling and then people started fighting. Then I saw someone had a bat and a metal object. . . . It got worse and worse.”

Before the melee was over, the 15-year-old cheerleading captain had been struck in the back of the head by someone in a green Inglewood jersey. Her ears were ringing and her face felt numb.

“Football players are supposed to be rough and tough but for them to beat up on girls is kind of wimpy,” she said.

School officials said the fight involved dozens of students and that there were a number of injuries but none that required hospital attention.

Both schools disciplined their own teams after the incident--with Inglewood High recommending the dismissal of its assistant coach and Hawthorne High suspending five players for one game--but each school also blamed the other’s team for instigating the brawl.

“Some of it is our fault, but not everything,” said Inglewood nose tackle Charlovahn Bell, 14. “It’s kind of both our faults.”

Both sides agree that tensions were high throughout the game. Afterward, the Hawthorne players went to the south side of the field instead of lining up for the traditional end-of-the-game handshake. Some of the players yelled to the Inglewood team, “We’re No. 1.”

No one disputes that Inglewood players then ran the length of the field, toward the Hawthorne players. Skirmishes broke out. Helmets were thrown. Soon players, coaches and some fans were exchanging blows, and a few of them were wielding baseball bats or knives.

Inglewood blames the outbreak of fighting on Hawthorne’s refusal to shake hands, coupled with cheap hits and racial slurs from the Hawthorne players during the game. Team members said most of Inglewood’s players joined the fighting only after Taofi Togia, a Hawthorne assistant coach, struck an Inglewood player.

Hawthorne players said they avoided shaking hands because their coach had predicted violence might erupt after the game. They also accused the Inglewood players of cheap shots during the game and said any slurs they hurled were fueled by similar comments from Inglewood players. Togia said he struck an Inglewood student only after the student struck him.

Inglewood High student Mark Chisolm, 17, filed an assault complaint against Togia with the Inglewood Police Department, and Togia filed a similar complaint against two unspecified people from Inglewood. A police spokesman said the complaints are being investigated.

“When they came after us we just froze,” Togia said. “We didn’t know what to do. . . I was trying to help (a player) when a guy with a bat came and grazed me. . . . Then a guy in street clothes hit me in the shoulder with a fist. I ended up hitting the guy (that was) with him. He went down and then the guy who hit me in the shoulder pulled a knife. . . . That’s when I grabbed my player’s helmet and used it to defend myself.”

Hawthorne team members also accused Inglewood’s assistant football coach Edwin Demby of fueling the fight by cursing throughout the game and encouraging his team to join the melee.

Enrique Hernandez, 16, said he was walking toward the south end of the field when he heard the Inglewood coach say, “Let’s go get ‘em.” Demby denies making such a remark.

Before he knew it, Hernandez said, he was overrun by Inglewood players.

“People were yelling and I ended up getting knocked on the ground,” he said. “I was trying to get up, to fight my way out. I must have been down for five or 10 minutes. They were kicking me, socking me. My leg was sore and I was limping for a few days.”

Demby, a part-time coach who is not on Inglewood High’s teaching staff, said he gave no orders to his players to fight and was in the middle of the melee trying to break it up. He said he even helped three Hawthorne coaches get on the bus when someone threatened them with a knife. A Hawthorne coach confirmed that Demby helped him and two others to get on the bus.

Demby said he is being made the scapegoat for the incident and plans to fight the district’s attempt to dismiss him.

“I should have let the individual with the knife stab the three Hawthorne people,” he said.

Inglewood High Principal Kenneth Crowe, who was removed from the principalship of Hawthorne High last year, accused Hawthorne players of poor sportsmanship and noted that the Hawthorne varsity team engaged in a bench-clearing brawl last month with players from Eisenhower High of Rialto. Two Hawthorne players involved in that incident were suspended for the rest of the season.

“It was just as much provoked on Hawthorne’s side as it was on Inglewood’s side,” said Crowe, whose son is an Inglewood team member and was involved in the fighting. “I don’t want to make much of our involvement because there’s been a pattern of Hawthorne players fighting and displaying poor sportsmanship.”

Hawthorne coaches, in turn, strongly criticized Inglewood’s team.

“If the coaches were really disciplined with their players, none of that would have happened,” Togia said. “It was a nightmare. I never saw anything like that.”

Hawthorne head Coach Dan Robbins said Demby, the assistant Inglewood coach, was cursing at Hawthorne players and taunting them. At one point, Robbins said, Demby threatened to shoot Robbins. Demby said he never threatened Robbins or cursed at any Hawthorne players.

“It was a tragic occurrence that a coach would allow, or even direct, his team to such action,” Robbins said. “When the coach is leading in that manner, as hostile as he was, making life threats, that’s an atrocious example.”

Robbins said he suspended two players for ignoring his orders to get on the bus during the fighting, one player for refusing to put down a bottle he had in his hand and two more for yelling comments at Inglewood players from inside the bus.

During the fight, a group of Inglewood players started climbing the bleachers toward the press box where Hawthorne student Tommy Hughes was packing up Hawthorne’s videotape equipment. Hughes said he fled after one of the players swung at him and that the equipment, valued at $1,200, is missing.

Caught in the middle of the turmoil were the cheerleaders.

Hawthorne cheerleader Iisha Byas, 15, said she is still suffering dizziness and headaches after an Inglewood player hit her in the head with a helmet.

Aranda, who said her parents will not allow her to cheer at any more away games, blamed both the team she was cheering for and rival Inglewood players for the fighting. She said she believes Hawthorne players provoked the Inglewood players by some of their comments and actions; nonetheless, she was shocked by how violently the Inglewood players reacted.

“It’s pretty frightening to think people would take a game so seriously to the point that they go crazy,” she said.