Dance Crew Ban Triggers Protest

About 50 parents and students from a Catholic high school held a protest Wednesday morning at the campus gates, decrying the forced withdrawal of nine boys and probation of four girls--including honors students, athletes and the junior class president--for their involvement in a youth “dance crew.”

The Alemany High School student handbook prohibits students from belonging to gangs--or anything resembling gangs--including dance crews or party crews. The nine boys were advised by school administrators to withdraw from the school or be expelled.

Such crews are identified by school officials and police as potential sources of violence, not because all crew members are troublemakers, but because crews attend parties that sometimes draw dangerous gangsters. Dance crews generally are informal groups of friends who attend parties and dances together.

Parents said Alemany’s rule prohibiting dance crews is relatively new. They say their children deserved a warning before being so severely disciplined.

“The thing is, these are good kids,” said Lulu Mercado, whose daughter, Valerie, is junior class president. Valerie was suspended and put on “strict probation” for four weeks after school officials saw her photograph on a flier promoting a March 1 dance party at a Los Angeles hotel.

Valerie attended the party with members of an Alemany dance crew called II Romantik, or IIRK for short. The party broke up after a gang-related stabbing occurred at the hotel, police said.

Although no Alemany students were involved in the fight, the incident heightened school administrators’ fears.

School officials said four girls were put on probation, but not asked to withdraw--as the boys were--because there was no evidence they belonged to a crew. However, the March 1 party flier included a photo of Valerie and other girls under the banner DOS (short for Definition of Style), which Valerie said is her dance group.

Parents at Wednesday’s protest said there seemed to be a double standard. “Why kick out the boys and not the girls?” one parent asked.

It’s because “the boys admitted to being members of a crew. In fact, one of them slipped and used the word himself during a [discipline] hearing,” said Scott Marshall, dean of boys at Alemany.

But one of the boys asked to withdraw from Alemany. Neil De Leon, an honors student, water polo player and youth ministry leader, denied in an interview being a crew member and said he did not attend the March 1 hotel dance. But Neil admitted knowing members of IIRK, and said that that alone, apparently, was enough to merit his dismissal.

Other boys said they have already entered other schools or are seeking admission. Meanwhile, their parents plan to file an appeal to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which runs the school.

The girls’ probation means they may not participate in any school-related extracurricular activities. As a result, Valerie had to withdraw from the race for next year’s student body president.

“These kids excel in community service,” Valerie’s mother said at the protest. “They go to church. They’re involved in school activities. They get high grades. They don’t understand--what have they done wrong?”

School officials say the punishment is just.

“They’ve basically formed an underground group,” Marshall said, “and these kids know the rules. . . . The kids know the rules better than some of the teachers. So pleading ignorance is not an excuse.”

Marshall cited police reports and literature linking party crews, dance crews and graffiti crews to incidents of violence and gang conflict.

“It’s a known fact that these parties are dangerous,” Marshall said. “We have to take a stand and provide a safe environment for our kids. It’s not just our belief. We work with law enforcement agencies who tell us, these crews present danger . . . so we have a zero-tolerance policy.

“You see how clean and nice our campus is. Why do you think it looks that way?”

A detective from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division said crews “are a potential problem” but are not tracked by police the way street gangs are tracked.

“As soon as a group identifies itself, they become a target for other groups, and there’s potential for trouble--absolutely,” said Det. Gordon Boling, a member of Foothill’s gang task force.

Boling added that party crew members are rarely the instigators of violence, but can be sucked into it. “Some crews escalate to the point where . . . they’ll start wearing their knuckles on somebody’s nose” instead of just dancing out their differences, Boling said.

His advice to good kids who just want to dance and hang out: “Try the junior Jaycees.”