Officials Vow to Expel Instigators of Gang Brawl at Leuzinger High

Centinela Valley School District officials, hoping to calm fears at Leuzinger High School, will meet this afternoon with a group of students, parents, teachers and local law enforcement officials to discuss a gang-related brawl at the school Friday.

Officials say the goal of the meeting is to find a way to avoid a repeat of the incident, which drew about 35 sheriff’s deputies and Hawthorne police officers to the campus and led to the arrest of seven youths, including at least five Leuzinger students.

The district attorney’s office has not filed charges against any of the youths.

Administrators used videotape of the incident shot by campus security guards to identify students involved in the fight, said Leuzinger Principal Sonja Davis. At least 10 students have been suspended, including three who were arrested, Davis said.

School officials say all students who attacked other students will be suspended and either transferred out of the school or expelled from the district.

Many students, worried that the violence may continue, stayed away from campus Monday, Davis said. Since then, the campus has been calm and most of Leuzinger’s 2,800 students have returned to class, she said.

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Despite the calm, however, sheriff’s patrols on and around the campus have increased and may continue indefinitely, Davis said.

The fight, which pitted blacks against Latinos, was apparently started by several Latino gang members in retaliation for an off-campus shooting Sept. 14 that left one Latino dead, officials said.

Alfonso Jacobo, 19, died Sept. 15 at Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center. The shooting, which occurred during an argument between three Latino and three black youths on Inglewood Avenue near 147th Street, strained racial tensions at Leuzinger, where Jacobo was a former student.

In the wake of the tensions, school officials called the meeting today to discuss installing a schoolwide outdoor public address system at Leuzinger, using hand-held metal detectors, setting up a 24-hour hot line for parents and students to voice concerns, and introducing a Safe School Zone policy in the district, Supt. Joseph Carrillo said.

The Safe School Zone would allow stiffer penalties for drug dealers and anyone possessing a firearm in a 1,000-foot area around each school in the district. The Centinela Valley school board is scheduled to vote Oct. 11 on the policy.

Campus administrators began using metal detectors Tuesday as a precautionary measure. Officials say they hope screening students at random will keep them from bringing weapons to class and deter youths who are not students from trying to get on campus.

Officials will decide Friday whether to keep the detectors.