What <i> Really </i> Happened at Hamilton High

The news spread like wildfire: “There’s big-time trouble at Hami!”

But when no details were forthcoming, rumors soon filled the news vacuum. There had been a shooting. Multiple injuries. A race war.

Within an hour of those first reports Tuesday morning, the Hamilton High Schools Complex was surrounded by television crews, police officers and panicked parents. Schools across the Westside went on alert, fearing that Monday’s melee at North Hollywood High had become contagious.

Fueled by voracious media and a news blackout imposed by the school principal, a minor skirmish between blacks and Latinos at Hamilton took on the appearance of a major riot, a Big Story.

When the smoke cleared, however, only three arrests had been made, and two students had suffered minor injuries in the crush of bodies. Classes continued on schedule.

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But early reports had already pushed the panic button.

The first call came into the police station in West Los Angeles shortly after 10 a.m. Tuesday.

School police reported an out-of-control confrontation. A wedge of about a dozen Latino students had moved menacingly across the quad during a nutrition break, and sporadic fighting had broken out. Hundreds of students pushed, shoved, slugged, and climbed on tables, either for a better view or trying to leave the area. But when the bell rang, they gradually dispersed for third-period classes.

More than 30 police officers responded to the call, however, blocking traffic on surrounding streets and securing the school perimeter. Eight officers guarded the front gate alone. A fire truck, an ambulance, and more than 10 squad cars sped to the school, on South Robertson Boulevard near the Santa Monica Freeway.

Parents, who had picked up sketchy radio reports or got telephone calls from friends, raced over. They double-parked or left their cars on sidewalks while they retrieved their children.

“It was a mob scene,” said parent Merredee Marcus, who had driven to the school to pick up her son. “Parents were panicked, but the kids were all in class and things were under control.”

But having heard reports of the trouble, school district officials and politicians--ranging from Westside school board member Mark Slavkin and Senior High Division Administrator Don Bolton to Councilman Nate Holden--soon showed up.

And so-called “eyewitnesses,” some of whom had never been inside the complex, held forth outside as the cameras rolled and reporters asked their opinions of the “unrest,” according to students and police.

“The television accounts were false,” said 10thgrader Brent Marcus. “I saw it erupt.”

“The problem was the TV crews that interviewed anybody standing around, a lot of whom didn’t know what had gone on,” said Lt. John Weaver of the Los Angeles Police Department, who was at the scene. “They were talking about shooting, a riot. But in reality, there appear to have been only two separate scuffles, involving a total of no more than six kids. Of course, all the other kids are screaming, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ and running to see it.”

Weaver said police responded en masse “to make sure it didn’t get out of control,” which made the situation appear even more serious.

The exact dimensions of the melee remained blurred for hours. Hamilton is an old school with no public-address system, making rumor control inside difficult, and outside callers were told that Acting Principal Elizabeth Metzelaar had instructed her staff not to put any calls through to her.

By mid-afternoon, however, as classes were dismissed without incident--except for a fight about a block away that slightly injured one youth--what had happened that morning became clearer.

“It was not a big deal,” said the school district’s Bolton. “A group of Latino kids marched through and scared people. . . . That created panic and general pandemonium. . . . It looked more chaotic than it actually was.”

Later, Metzelaar said, paramedics had taken two girls to a nearby emergency room, one of them, a pregnant student who was pushed, and the other, a student who suffered a seizure.

Some observers surmised that the incident was merely copycat behavior stemming from the North Hollywood High riot a day earlier. Others pointed to general unrest growing out of the spring riots, the depressed economy and the threat of a teacher strike.

But nearly all agreed that the incident was racially tinged.

Teachers and students say there is underlying racial tension at Hamilton, as at most Los Angeles high schools, and that Tuesday’s events grew out an incident there a week before.

Teacher Wayne Johnson said, “It didn’t just start today. There was a confrontation last week over a basketball game on the Hamilton grounds after school.”

“It is definitely racial,” said junior Blanca Katry, a Latina. “It’s been tense like this since the spring (riots). A lot of my friends got hit, and one got taken out on a stretcher. My friends are all saying, ‘We’re going to get them’ (African-Americans). It’s stupid, and I don’t like to see people hurt.”

But another student, junior Previn Anderson, an African-American, said Latinos instigated the fight. “A bunch of Hispanics lined up and started walking through (the quad) like they were looking for a fight. Everyone started throwing stuff. I think it’s (the ethnic problem) going to keep going on.”

Police, too, described the incident as “a black-brown confrontation,” adding that the perpetrators do not appear to be hard-core gang-bangers.

LAPD Sgt. Doug Abney said three students were arrested for carrying weapons on campus--knives and a chain. The youths were booked at the West Los Angeles station and released to their parents.

Although downplaying the seriousness of the Hamilton incident, Westside school board representative Slavkin said it should serve as “an alarm bell warning us to redouble our efforts to defuse racial tensions in a productive way.”

Late Monday, after the North Hollywood riot, district officials began sending word to principals of middle schools and high schools across the city to do just that.

John Liechty, middle schools director, faxed principals a message asking them to become more sensitive to seemingly insignificant student incidents and to review contingency plans to address unrest. Plans, he said, should include ways to involve student leaders, control rumors and discuss acceptable ways to resolve conflicts.

His senior high counterpart, Dan Isaacs, faxed principals a reminder that administrators need to be especially “vigilant,” that emergency preparedness response plans should be reviewed, and that students should be involved in discussions of human and group relations.

Nearly 6,000 parents, teachers, administrators and students have participated in human relations workshops in Griffith Park begun by the school district last year, said Deputy Supt. Ruben Zacarias, and Hamilton High was immediately scheduled for a special session at Camp Griffo, he said, after Tuesday’s incident.

Many Westside schools took steps to calm the waters.

At Westchester High School, Principal Eileen Banta said administrators met with the student government and Spirit Club to discuss racial problems.

At Venice High, whose student body is drawn from a mixed neighborhood rather than bused in, racial tensions are low. But Principal Bud Jacobs says student leaders still went over plans for the upcoming homecoming game and dance and Spirit Week “to make sure there was a balance even in the music.” A dispute over Latino and black music preferences was said to have precipitated last week’s problems at North Hollywood High.

“The music thing is a real thing,” Jacobs said. “We even gave equal time to each faction in the music we played as a promo during lunch. I asked for some Beach Boys music, though, and was roundly booed.”

He added that teachers have assigned essays on what kind of racial tensions--and solutions to them--exist at Venice High.

And at Palisades High, a host of “unity activities” and groups such as the Human Relations Club, the Latino Awareness Club, and the student leadership class are already acting to promote ethnic understanding.

“In the last couple of days, though, we went to sponsors and leaders of campus organizations to debrief them about their perceptions,” said Palisades Principal Merle Price.

“For the most part, the kids tell me they see the issues there (at North Hollywood and Hamilton) as unrelated to us. ‘Oh, come on, Mr. Price,’ they told me, ‘you know we’re cool here.’

“My only concern is situations where students get involved in everyday misunderstandings that could be construed as a racial slight: A student accidentally bumps into another; he’s backed up by his friends. It could easily be perceived as racial and get out of control.”