High School Food Fight Turns Into Race Riot Involving Hundreds Of Students

8% of Somali-Americans attend the school and 20% of Black-Americans

Students say there has been ongoing tension,but the school administrators deny it, despite the parents and students saying otherwise. So much for diversity and "multicultural" education.

'I don't feel safe here,' senior Guled Omar told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. 'This is something that has been going on [for at least two years].'

In a statement posted on the school's website, district spokesperson Stan Alleyne wrote: 'South is a very diverse high school.'

'It is a microcosm of the city. Students function together at a high level every day. That is the strength of this school. Our students live diversity every day.'

So far, no charges have been filed but police said students involved in the melee could potentially face assault, riot, and other counts.

The Startribune reports:

It's not clear who started the riot, but from the video tapes two girls wearing Muslim veils run off after some sort of confrontation and eventually other students get involved. I don't see the difference in race, as Somali Americans are also black. Could it be a difference in religion and culture causing the violent behavior and strained relations?

The Daily Mail reports:

Student Abdi Sheik told CBS that the fight escalated into a 'big riot' over racial hostilities that have long been bubbling under the surface.

According to witnesses, an initial fight happened during the first lunch period when one student threw a milk carton at another. By the time the third period came around, the situation spiraled out of control, with boys hitting girls and some students lying on the floor and covering their faces in surrender.

Some members of the South High School community said that the violent incident was the culmination of ongoing tensions between the eight per cent of Muslim students of Somali decent and the 20 per cent who are African Americans.

'Race riot': South High School students said the melee was the culmination of ongoing racial tensions between black and Muslim teens

Excerpted Atlas Shrugs:The fight was "connected to long-running racial tension." Uh, Islam is not a race. More of the poisonous fruit of importing whole Muslim communities under the Refugee Resettlement Program.

That “all-out brawl” at South High in Minneapolis got coverage from virtually every local outlet. At WCCO-TV, Esme Murphy reports: “Twelve people complained that they had been sprayed with mace. Police at the scene said they had to use chemical agent to get the crowd under control as they were being pelted with objects as they tried to break things up. … [One student] said the fights were over pride.‘I know it’s a pride thing between Muslims and black people,’ she said. ‘They want their pride back for something. I don’t know.’ She also said ‘boys were hitting girls’ and that some people were lying on the floor, with their hands over their heads, in surrender.… The fight, students say, was the result of long-simmering tensions between the 8 percent of students who are Somali Americans and the 20 percent who are African Americans.” (Minn Post)

Last July, a Minnesota Sheriff reported to Congress on the growing Somalia Muslim gang threat.

Wait till they outnumber the local students. The Somalis do not have the advantage yet. At last count there were more than 60,000 there, and the city got big money to allow them there under the Refugee Resettlemnt Program.

Fight at South High leads to melee involving 200 to 300 students Star Tribune staff writers, February 14, 2013

Innocent bystander: This high school staff member was taken to a hospital after being hit in the head with a bottle tossed by one of the brawlers
"But that investigation is going to take time," he told news media gathered at the school. Police have surveillance images from cameras inside the school, said Palmer, who added that Mace was needed to calm the unrest.
Police descended Thursday afternoon on a cafeteria melee involving hundreds of Minneapolis South High School students that some said is connected to long-running racial tension in the school among Somalis and others.

After-school activities will go on as scheduled, but a district spokesperson said officials are debating canceling classes on Friday to let the situation calm down. Monday is a day off, due to President's Day.

Police said three students and one staff member were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. No weapons were involved and no one was arrested but charges ranging from rioting to disorderly conduct could be filed, according to Police Sgt. William Palmer.

The incident happened almost one month after four students at Minneapolis Washburn High School were disciplined for dangling a dark-skinned doll by a piece of string in a school stairway. Tensions flared and after-school activities were cancelled after the Jan. 17 incident.

At South on Thursday, Palmer said tensions started during first-hour lunch at about 11:45 a.m. when one student threw a milk carton at another, sparking a small fight. By the third lunch hour at about 12:45 p.m., unsubstantiated rumors about that initial fight spread, erupting into the melee involving 200 to 300 students pushing, shoving and throwing items, he said. Twenty to 25 staff members tried to intervene, as did two School Resource Officers who ended up calling Minneapolis police for back-up.

Palmer said students were not dispersing or following orders so Mace was sprayed into the air, successfully breaking up the fighting. "We're very fortunate no one got seriously hurt," he said.

A chaotic scene

Students said some people were stomping on others and throwing bottles until police arrived at the school, located about a block south of East Lake Street off of 19th Avenue.

Junior Simon Quevedo said fights during the first two lunches escalated as word spread. "People came in to back up their friends and it turned into an altercation," he said. "I was a bit scared because you never know what people will have on them."

Student Council president Connor Bass described the scene as "chaos" until it was broken up. The senior said five to six fights were going on simultaneously.

"When the cops came and started spraying Mace it was just pandemonium with people trying to run away," he said.

Tensions stayed high after school, but violence did not reignite when words were exchanged in the school parking lot after classes were dismissed.

Junior Adnan Farah, standing with his mother, said the violence "was a racial issue. This is just the biggest one throughout the year."

Guled Omar, a senior, said he was sitting in the cafeteria when the outburst began after a boy hit a girl.

"I don't feel safe here," Omar said. "This is something that has been going on" for at least two years, he said.

"I don't know if it's because we're minorities of the newest immigrant group," Omar added, saying he has complained to the principal and the School District.

Minneapolis Public Schools spokesman Stan Alleyne said the district takes racial complaints seriously and that the school is safe.

Amateur video shows fight

"A food fight ... escalated into a physical fight" during the third lunch period that lasted about 15 minutes, the school said in a notice posted on its website.

"Staff members responded immediately to the incident and followed proper security procedures," the statement continued. The campus was placed on "code yellow" lockdown through the school day, with students remaining in their classes before being dismissed as usual.

Amateur video posted on KSTP-TV, Channel 5, shows many students scattering during the incident amid the cafeteria tables. Some of the tables were adorned with helium-filled balloons for Valentine's Day.

"Fighting is not tolerated at school or on school property," the school's statement said, adding that the School District will follow its discipline policy in dealing with incident.

WND reports on the Minneapolis food fight incident as well, but has another take on the violence and sees it as a type of black mob mentality, Colin Flaherty writes:

Minneapolis has been the scene of a dozens of episodes of black mob violence and lawlessness, which the paper has refused to acknowledge.
After doing several stories on an outbreak of violence in downtown Minneapolis, Star Tribune crime reporter Matt McKinney said he was stumped about what was behind this crime wave: The mayhem was “random” and “no other real pattern emerges” and the “motivation for the attacks remains unclear.”
All of violence was from groups of black people.
More and more residents of the Minneapolis area are connecting the violence with groups of blacks marauding through the downtown and other parts of Minneapolis; beating, hurting, destroying and stealing. Sometimes right in front of police.
A lot of it on YouTube. With lots of witnesses – 15 to 20 times over the last two years.
A headline from the Star Tribune tell part of the story, but conceals the rest: “Flash mob actions worry Minnesota police.”
St. Patrick’s Day mauling 20 black people inflicted on a Minneapolis graphic artist named Pieter. He suffered serious brain injuries and now has no short-term memory. A local bank has turned videos of the crime over to the police. He is afraid to use his last name.
An hour before Pieter was beaten and kicked into the Intensive Care Unit, 20 black people assaulted an out-of-town couple at the exact same intersection. The Star Tribune may be squeamish about reporting the race of the criminals, but City Pages is not:
Melissa screamed as three separate youths came at Kirk, throwing punches. Kirk says he was able to dodge the blows. He remembers one of the assailants smiling while he threw punches, “like it was fun.” As people on the street started to take notice of the attack, the mob dispersed, leaving Kirk one-on-one with a man he says was over 6 feet tall.
“I dodged several of his punches before he ran off,” Kirk said, adding that he himself didn’t punch anyone. “I believe that if it wasn’t for my wife’s screaming I would have been seriously injured.” Thankfully, he ended up with nothing more than a swollen neck. Melissa, a 33-year-old school teacher, was pushed, and one of the assailants burned her hand with a cigarette, she says.
After the mob dispersed, Kirk and Melissa made their way back to the Marquette. There, they talked to a police officer about the incident.
“In September of 2011, a crowd of 1,000 black people rioted through downtown fighting, stealing, destroying property. Much of it on YouTube. (Warning: Graphic language)
A few days later, a gang of 20 black women beat awhite woman after she confronted them about harassing her child.
At the Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis, hundreds of black people ran through the mall, fighting, beating, stealing and destroying. All on video.
A few months earlier, a group of black people attacked a mobile alcoholic beverage cart in Minneapolis – stealing, threatening. The newspaper dutifully reported the crime, and dutifully ignored the race of the attackers.
Except for the Minneapolis City Page, which reported:
“Almost the instant they stopped at a red light, a crowd of “25 to 40 young African Americans” suddenly materialized and surrounded the pub, as Ranney told police later. The teenagers jumped up on the bar, shaking the whole contraption and screaming indecipherably.
The University of Minnesota newspaper in its early editions identified the attackers by race, but removed it in later editions.
Videos of groups of violent black people in Minneapolis are so numerous that some are even set to music.
McKinney and the police are not willing to talk about violence and how race is a part of it. But the readers of the paper, bloggers, and talk radio are.
“Let’s stop being so P.C. about all this,” said one reader of the Star Tribune. “It’s a racial thing, isn’t it? Isn’t it black youth who are the ones committing the vast majority of these downtown crimes, and aren’t they the ones harassing people downtown? Will this comment be censored? Isn’t what I’m saying factual, though, censored or not?”