4 Arrested as Blacks, Latinos Clash at School : Violence: Police officer in riot gear break up a racially motivated fight at North Hollywood High School.

Racially motivated fighting broke out Monday among hundreds of black and Latino students at North Hollywood High School, prompting a large police response to quell the disturbances.

No injuries were reported. Four students were arrested in the fighting, police said.

The school’s principal, Catherine Lum, said the fighting began during the school’s morning recess period and spread at lunch time. By 1 p.m., police in riot gear had surrounded the school at Magnolia and Colfax streets and closed it to the public.

Lum said 200 students were involved in the fighting, but police on the scene estimated as many as 1,000 students were involved.

“It was mostly racial,” said senior Raul Briceno, who walked home early from school with his mother and his two sisters. “That’s what I hate. People were getting knocked around just because they’re Latino or black.”

Reports of what prompted the fight differed, although most students said that it was a carry-over from another altercation that took place Friday night, just after the school’s homecoming game and dance.

After the dance, fighting broke out when black gang members who did not attend the school attacked the school’s Latino homecoming king, who they thought had insulted them by giving a “Brown Power” sign, several students said.

Tensions had escalated throughout the evening, the students said, beginning with a struggle over whether to play the techno-style music favored by Latino students or the hip-hop preferred by blacks.

On Monday, according to student council member Tenisha Reynolds, a senior, Latino students who felt slighted by Friday’s attack provoked black students in retaliation.

Lum downplayed the gravity of the situation, insisting that while 200 students may have “run around” and “been confused,” just seven actually fought. She stopped short of calling the police response excessive, but said repeatedly, “I did not call them.”

Still, students said that the reports were not exaggerated, and that they felt frightened.

“I was hit by males, females, teachers, whoever was in the way,” said Tamika McKinon, a senior who contended that she was accidentally struck on the jaw by a police billy club as she tried to pull a friend out of the fray.

For a short time Monday, the Los Angeles Police Department declared a tactical alert for the entire city, much as it did last April during rioting that ensued after the not guilty verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating case, said Lt. Gary Hallden.

Lum said that classes would be held as usual Tuesday, but extra guidance counselors would be on hand for students who need to talk about Monday’s unrest.

School board member Roberta Weintraub said Monday’s incident reinforces her claim that schools should be shut down if there is a teacher’s strike.

“Suppose this had occurred and the teachers were on strike,” she said. “What the heck would we have done? I don’t think it’s safe for children to be at schools without teachers. A teacher can at least calm down the situation.”

Times staff writer Stephanie Chavez contributed to this story.