Student Arrested After School Fight That Spread to Streets

A 17-year-old Leuzinger High School student was arrested Wednesday after a fight on campus spilled out onto a street in Lawndale, authorities said.

No injuries were reported in the fracas, which at one time involved as many as 200 students, said Sgt. Robin Sawyer of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The 17-year-old, who was not identified because of his age, was arrested on suspicion of vandalism after allegedly breaking two car windows with a trash can.

The altercation began before the school lunch break when a fight broke out between two female students, one an African-American and the other a Latina, Sawyer said. He did not know the cause of the fight.

The students continued the argument off-campus during their lunch break and other students joined in. Most of the fighting took place at the intersection of Rosecrans and Prairie avenues in Lawndale, authorities said.

“Fighting would break out in hot spots,” said Lt. John Beerling of the Hawthorne Police Department. “There were students running around in groups of 25 with bricks and baseball bats. We’d stop the fighting on one corner and they’d start up again down the block.”

Beerling attributed the fighting to a “growing racial problem between the black and Hispanic students.” The district has been troubled by racial divisions that have prompted several campus melees in the past few years.