2 Schools Discipline Players After Brawl

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.

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.