School Riot

Los Angeles is beginning to look like something from a strange pseudo-science fiction novel set in what was thought to be a distant future. It appears yesterday there a riot at high school involving over 600 students. The riot began when two graffiti gangs set a pre-arranged fight (sort of "old school"). Things of course turned ugly as the two gangs involved were Black and Hispanic gangs.

If you're not aware of the current racial climate in L.A. between Black and Hispanics, I'll fit you in. A Hispanic prison gang leader in California sought to cut his competition - a black prison gang out of the drug market. This of course spilled onto the streets with the leaders proclaiming war on any person of the opposite race. This war has caused the death of countless innocent and not-so innocent people. Most of the folks behind this have been arrested but the animosity still exists.

This riot caused a tremendous headache for security staff as they had to scramble from one fight to another. You see the same sort of chaos being attempted in prison settings. This is why security personnel need to be trained to quell such incidents immediately or else it can and will spread throughout the school.

I suspect we haven't seen the last of such incidents in cities like L.A.. While most of these problems can be caused socio-economic perpetrators such as poverty and urban flight, I'm sure incidents such as this can be prevented with active and innovative school security techniques. If I could recommend a course of action for such institutions, I would have them look at a few areas to possibly improve on:

1. Design of your facilities. Fights and riots inside schools often occur in the same manner they do in prisons. They're usually not in the immediate sight of administrators and security personnel. Construct student congregation areas so administrators and security have the ability to rapidly respond to situations. You may wnat to look at ways to lock down an area where things could flare up once the incident is underway (cafeterias are prime spots to lock down or have students relocate from).
2. Evacuation plans. You may want to look at your current evacuation plans. Are students who don't get along (gang members) being forced to relocate with folks they have a certain social imperative to hate (gang war or "beef" as it's more commonly known)?
3. Training. Are your staff trained to recognize certain critical indicators of trouble? Can they recognize key gang signals? How about a recent change in gang graffiti throughout the school? Gangs will often try to "mark" over another gang's territory to "claim" it as their own.