These are supposed to be the good kids. The ones supposed to be impressed with the legacy of their school’s namesake: Frederick Douglass.
They wear uniforms. They have a strict code of conduct. They prepare for college. They are black. And this week in 2014, they are the ones rioting at Frederick Douglass High School and Junior High in Rochester.
Maybe the students don’t know the story of Frederick Douglass: How it was against the law for a slave to learn to read. How he broke that law. How he risked everything just to steal a few moments with a book.
By 1838, Douglass escaped. He became known as a leading writer and speaker around the world. He lived for 25 years in Rochester -- where today he is buried. And where today, black people who live in his adopted hometown regularly and frequently and intensely create black mob violence and mayhem. Some at the expense of learning.
Some during Black History Month 2014: Dozens of police officers were called to the school to stop what school officials and some local media call a “few fights,” but what students and parents are calling “a riot:” one hundred, maybe more, black people fighting, destroying property, jumping on tables, assaulting people, and more.
The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle tracked down a student and parent to describe the mayhem:887
"There was a lot of fights, a lot of gangs at the school, everybody is just going one against the other," said Jade Jones, a student at the school who said she was jumped by another student and her older cousins in a back hallway on Tuesday. "All you heard was a lot of kids screaming, a lot of kids screaming at each other, groups of kids, everybody up on tables, jumping across tables at other kids ... it was just a lot of swear words … I got attacked in the back hallway and everything is really hurting right now.”
Teresa Spence, Jada’s mom, said violence at the school is a regular and a dangerous thing. She picked up the story for the Democrat and Chronicle:
“On a daily basis you hear of kids being bullied and terrorized and even Jada herself has been a victim of it," Spence said. "I've been called to the school. There has been constant mediation and it doesn't do any good. It just came to a head with this total chaos up here today. Half of the time she is scared to come to school because she doesn’t know what she’s going to walk into or what she is going to face. Some days it seems as if the kids rule the school. Total chaos.”
Before it was over, seven students were arrested, two were xx tapered and the school was locked down.
“We got mace and (someone) pulled the fire alarm and started to fight outside,” Keyani Harmon posted in the comments at the Democrat and Chronicle. “It was total madness nothing we should go through. They mace and pepper sprayed us so much I still can't breathe from it..” xx
Keyani says violence is normal at his school: “As all my friends know I attend dougles (sic) high school,” he wrote in his Facebook page. “The problem is it feels like we are in jail or prison 1. We walk thrue metal detectors. 2 we have guards walk us to the restroom 3.fights happen at any moment.”
School officials assured parents and reporters that nothing much happened. And it would not happen again. They say that a lot in Rochester.