5 teens sent to jail after fight erupts between local students and Hurricane Katrina evacuees

Jennifer Radcliffe:

Houston school officials will increase police presence at Jesse H. Jones High School and reconsider the number of Hurricane Katrina evacuees at the campus after five students were arrested and three were hospitalized because of an early morning fight Tuesday between Houston and New Orleans teenagers.

The fight, which involved 20 to 25 students, started about 8:15 a.m. — when a Jones student threw a soda can toward a group of New Orleans students, said HISD spokesman Terry Abbott. The incident is the first problem the district has had since enrolling 3,403 evacuated students. In the Greater Houston area, 15,045 displaced students are attending public schools.

A New Orleans student was transported to Memorial Hermann Hospital for facial injuries and two Houston students were taken to the hospital for facial and rib injuries. Two 15- and 16-year-old boys from New Orleans were arrested, as were three local 17- and 18-year-old boys.

All five were charged with disruption of school activities, a Class C misdemeanor, and will be removed from the campus, Abbott said.

"The quickest way to earn a ticket out of Jones High School and into detention is to hurt one of those students from New Orleans," Abbott said. "They've made it very clear to the Jones High School students that the children from New Orleans are our guests. We must treat them with all the dignity and respect we can."

New Orleans students are also being reminded to follow the rules, he said.

About 200 hurricane survivors are bused daily from the Reliant Park shelters to Jones. The school was selected to house evacuated students because of its low enrollment — about 1,100 students, 55 percent of whom are black, according to 2003-04 state figures.

HISD leaders may also discuss reducing the number of evacuated students at Jones, at 7414 St. Lo. The 200 students there are the most evacuees at any HISD high school. There are 103 at Scarborough High, which is taking students from the George R. Brown Convention Center. Sharpstown has 42, Kashmere has 25 and Wheatley has 33, Abbott said.

Jones students said Tuesday that they'd tried to welcome the evacuees to their school, but they changed their tune when New Orleans students started threatening to take over the campus and the city.

Houston students said the tension won't blow over until the evacuees are moved to another campus.

"It's not working," 15-year-old Tracy Williams, a Houston sophomore, said. "We were doing good before they came here — for real."

Teens said they're frustrated that the evacuees are getting extra assistance and special attention.

"Nobody's giving us $2,000. When it floods here, we don't go over there," said Pedro Umana, 14, a freshman from Houston. "They started it, but we finished it. And it's not over yet."

Senior Treyvaun Jones, 18, said, "I'm scared to go back to my own school, and I'm a grown man."

Robert Muhammad, southwest regional minister of the Nation of Islam, said leaders must address the concerns of Houston students. Muhammad, along with other members of the Ministerial Advisory Board to the mayor of Houston, will be on hand to counsel families at Jones today.

"We must address these legitimate complaints of our children. We can't sweep this under the rug," he said. "Those who have always been the least, the lost in this city would feel somewhat neglected."

Still, they must understand and have sympathy for the devastation that their neighbors have experienced, he said.

"The welcome mat in Houston is already being pulled back," he said. "My appeal to our city is that we be in this thing for the long run. It has long-run social, economic and political impact."

After school Tuesday, New Orleans evacuee Thea Daniel, 15, recounted how a Houston boy started the fight by hitting a New Orleans boy in the head with an open can of Sprite. Thea said school officials kept the evacuee students in the auditorium all day, even sending them back to the shelters a little early.

"They talked to us about discipline," Thea said.

Both Thea and her friend Jange Nero, 15, said they weren't surprised by the fight. Students have been talking back and forth since the New Orleans teens started attending classes there last week, they said.

Three HISD officers are already stationed at the school, but extra police, administrators and religious leaders are expected to be on hand today to help quell the tension, officials said.

HISD school board member Arthur Gaines said educators may have been so focused on finding schools for Louisiana students to attend that they didn't spend enough time making sure the children would get along.

"I don't think we should have just assumed these youngsters were going to melt in because they were black," Gaines said. "I think if the staff and teachers had worked with the students to say: 'Look, they've lost their homes. They've lost everything. ... I want you to put your arms around them.'"

While it's typical for teens to have skirmishes, Gaines said he expects Jones students to welcome New Orleans evacuees.

"These young people have had such a traumatic experience. This is like war. I guess you could say we've been in a war against nature," he said. "I don't think there's going to be continuous, ongoing friction."

After returning from their first day of class last week, displaced students living at Reliant Park reported feeling tension. Some Houston students had thrown gang signs and made disparaging remarks, said 17-year-old Raymond Warner, who is from New Orleans.

The evacuated students said last week that they would try to stay out of trouble.

"It's rough where we come from. There's a big chance something will happen," Raymond said Thursday. "Everybody was looking at us strange and everything because we're from New Orleans."

Reliant Park resident Pauline Johnson said Tuesday that she's worried about sending her two sons back to Jones.

"People are scared for their children. I'm scared that it's going to be a riot," she said. "We didn't ask to come here. I don't know why we're being treated like this."

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