The fights: City versus Mervo:scary school days

Buz has read with interest Sara Neufeld's article and blog in the Sun about the fights between kids who "attend" Mervo and "attend" City College here in Baltimore. Some commenters think that it's nothing and shouldn't even have been reported. Sorry: I disagree.

• It seems that these weren't really "fights" at all: merely group attacks on lone students who appeared to be associated with the Other School. (Rodney King: "can't we all just get along"?) Typically, these  cowards find a student who is alone and attack as a group. It appears that a group of City students did just that--injuring a Mervo student.  Did they attack him because he did something to them or were they just out to find somebody to "bank"? Then, later, a group of Mervo students went to beat up on a City student.
• City and Mervo are supposed to be two of the city's elite high schools, where students have to apply to get in and somehow be screened before being accepted. Wonder how Dr. Alonso's new policy will apply if the "investigation" finds a group of City students were the attackers/instigators here. We wonder if they would be expelled and sent to their zoned high school? He has recently stated that students in these schools couldn't be kicked out under standards used in the past. The schools are supposed to "work with" these students and not just flunk them out. Wonder if assaults perpetrated off school grounds mean anything. [We think Dr. Alonso is a great guy, but if the city's select high schools (City, Poly, Western, School for the Arts, Carver, Dunbar and yes, Mervo)  evolve to be just like any other of the city's high schools, the middle class in the city, who are committed to public schools, will just move out.]
• We're glad the School Police intervened; perhaps that will put an end to it. Usually warm weather brings a rash of this stuff out, and this is not a good premonition of spring.
• There was a really a scary post by someone claiming to be a teacher at Mervo. Apparently the hall walkers and druggies and gamblers are running amok there. When Buz worked at Walbrook a number of years ago, there were often lots, perhaps dozens, of hall walkers on many days (kids who check into school, but cut one or more or all of their classes, but not the "hundreds" cited by this teacher. I remember there was a disturbance at Mervo last year where a teacher was taken to the hospital. At Walbrook it was not unusual to have fires set in trash cans or in bathrooms {the school was never evacuated and staff put the fires out.}
• Since City's swimming pool (like others at high schools in the city) is not usable, City's swim team has been going up to Mervo to use its pool. Since the heavy street action has occurred, a decision has been made that the team will simply not practice at Mervo since the season is almost over.
• Several posters on Sara's blog indicate that they think this is no big deal, just kids fighting. Your consultant thinks this is a big deal, because these two schools are important in our city. City is surrounded to the east and south by the neighborhood of Coldstream-Harford-Montebello (CHUM), recently one of the most violent in the city last year, and so far this year. A young adult was recently found shot to death just on the edge of  campus on a recent weekend. Last year a student in the Baltimore Algebra Project was murdered at a bus stop just off campus. And to the north of Mervo is the Northwood shopping center, which has struggled with street crime, the scene of Councilman Harris' murder.  So, this tit-for-tat violence could very easily get out of hand. Neighborhood non-student youth could become involved.
• An acquaintance was robbed on school property last year as he left the building after a sports meeting. Though several attackers were arrested, he declined to press charges, since "they know what I look like, and where I go to school." 
• Buz believes that far too little is done to separate violent bullies from the school population. He believes that bullying, harassment, fights, other violence, potential violence and having to travel thru the neighborhoods on Others' Turf is what is a big factor in causing a lot of kids to drop out of school. Of course, we know there are lots of other factors, but this is the biggie-in my humble opinion.

Recent crime reports: City College, Quarry Lake

Just reported:

A student at Baltimore City College was robbed last Thursday in broad daylight at 4pm as he was walking between the tennis courts to his car on the Loch Raven side of the school. He was approached by 5 teenagers--one armed with brass knuckles and another armed with a knife. (Courageous Baltimore thugs like the odds in their favor a bit.) One did the standard pre-robbery  question: do you know what time it is? When the kid answered it was about 4, the young gentleman said: you know that because you have a cell phone on you; give it to me. So the young student gave it up. He then got away from them and reported it to our crack, elite Baltimore School Police (there were 4 of them on duty!). They were able to swoop up and grab 2 out of 5, but no weapons or cell phone on those young lads. Our victim very ethically declined to identify the perps as the ones, because he couldn't be sure.

Buz says: Clearly 4 school police on site at such a relatively small property, in daylight, should have been able to prevent this kind of crime. Betcha: 3-1, they were all together in one spot laughing, joking, shooting the breeze, talking on their cell phones, and checking websites. I hope I'm wrong, but betcha there isn't much supervision going on once the school day is over.

Buz advice to school system: send out trusted or objective people out to your scattered sites to see what your folks are up to and if they're earning their overtime money. Betcha 4-1, it ain't gonna happen.

Also: just in: Up at Quarry Heights, the swank new development off Greenspring, someone stole all their flat screen TVs earlier this year, sounding very similar to the burglaries at Boys Latin and Bryn Mawr. The consultant just wishes these electronic techs could find some decent construction type job so they don't have to use their skills this way. Crime tip for businesses, especially new ones: watch your contractors like hawks--unless you've been doing business with them for a long time. Wish it weren't true, but a lot of contractors have a network of scuzzy (that's a technical term) buyers for their "aftermarket" for various goods. Hope you all enjoyed the super bowl real good, guys. Remember, all you users of fancy electronic stuff, the walls have eyes, and the eyes of ne'er do wells just can't take themselves off of electronics. And at the same time, they're looking around to see what if any security you have--if any. Don't tell them! For reasons of security, we don't discuss our security.