March 7, 2008
Caller behind PHS bomb threat arrested, and a few others
From PPS’ Cliff Davis: Petersburg High School (PHS) officials and local police reacted swiftly to calm an emergency situation today that began with a student‚Äôs bomb threat call.
Petersburg Police reported that someone made a series of bomb threat calls about the school, beginning around 10 a.m. Friday. The school was notified and immediately evacuated all students. The gymnasium underwent a security sweep with the assistance of state police. Once that area was found to be secure, students were brought into the gymnasium due to the rainy weather.
Police traced the calls to a PHS student, who was then arrested. Subsequently, altercations began to break out among some students, possibly in connection with the original incident, which police helped to calm. Assistance was provided by Chesterfield and Prince George County police. Five students and one adult were arrested, in addition to the alleged threat caller. Two police officers and four students were reportedly injured.
Once the situation was calmed, students were dismissed to go home at normal time.
On NBC12.
the police handled this situation terribly wrong in my opinion they pushed someone down the bleechers first and then everyone got upset and got up and then they pulled out batons and mase and used it before any altercations broke out.
The police are the reasin for the big riot ; if they woul’dnt have beaten people for no reason then maybe we could have continued our day. They broke someones leg and sprayed out teachers. but they said on the new that they only used they baton once and did’nt use the mase! they are lying will you guys listen to us students and this time we have adult witnesess!
What was going on that they were moving people around in the bleachers and how do you mean they pushed someone?
There are very few times that police will use physical force for no reason and most of those incidents are when they think they are not being watched. Those are the bad officers we need to find and weed out.
With a room full of people watching you have to think that the use of force was not just a knee jerk reaction.
Tell us more about what you saw.
I recommend folks with questions or concerns go to the meeting that the school administration will hold tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon, 4pm.
I have talked with one adult teacher and several students who witnessed action in Lawson Gym. The vote was three to one that the police did not use excessive force. I agree with comment #4 and will go to the meeting at the school on Sunday to see what the “super delegates” have to say. The final vote ain’t in yet.
Tiffany dear, my suggestion is that you just go back to class and concentrate on your studies rather than posting histrionic comments on this blog. It is quite evident that you are certainly not a star student in your English class.
Perhaps Petersburg should explore the possibility of annexation to one of the adjoining counties (historically, it was within Dinwiddie). This would allow Petersburg’s students to participate in a more diverse cultural environment with its accompanying opportunities & resources. Annexation to a county would also open more significant funding opportunities at state & federal levels. I believe the positive consequences for Petersburg would be enormous.
From my perspective, the school system is a political problem, plain and simple. Most, if not all, of our local politicians have their political roots in the school system and are thus, way too close to the problem to do what is necessary to fix it. One example is the mayor. She ran the math dept at PHS for over 30 years and what are the educational results she produced during her long tenure? The mayor’s math dept ranked 160th out of 160 schools tested in the state. In any other place, results like these would get a person fired from their job, in Petersburg we crown that person mayor! The public school system is an unmitigated disaster and does a disservice to the students, the parents, and the taxpayers of Petersburg every day it remains open. Stop the bleeding. Shut it down now.
I’m not sure ’shut it down’ is going to be much service to the students. We have a new superintendent, and other leadership, that bring with them experience/skills/energy/perspectives from places not here. The more support we give them, perhaps the easier it will be for them to effect the changes that they deem necessary — theirs is not an easy job.
Yes we have new leadership but I am concerned about them. I have seen a document from a school system member that was not fit for publication. Not typos nor misspellings but not a coherent format. In other words I don’t think it represented effective written communications. I do not know if the person providing the document was the author of it but I said at the time, “I pray that someone with a Doctorate didn’t compose this!”
As to annexation, isn’t it true that after some type of annexation debacle involving Richmond and Chesterfield County, there has been put in place a moratorium on any further annexations in the commonwealth? It may not be actual legislation because I understand that the Feds would have to review any annexation attempt due to a history of attempted annexation for racial reasons and that may be a de-facto ban since a locality might not want to jump through those hoops.
Don’t shut it down. Put enforceable standards in place for both the students AND the administration/faculty. But then the NEA wouldn‚Äôt like that would they!
What do you mean why we were in the way, they were spraying mase we had to get out the way in order to not get sparyed. They told a huge lie in the newspapper saying that they only sparyed mase once, and they didn’t use any other weapons.I saw them spary a boy directly in his face, I also saw them beat someone continuously with a night stick. DID THEY FORGET THEY WE WERE THERE! We saw what happened, why didn’t they just ask us what happened instead of lying. We saw three of four police on top of one person, it was horrible. For the perosn who made the comment about Tiffany saying that she needs to pay attention in her English class, and also saying that she was being histrionic (being overly dramtic yeah I pay attention in my English class I knew what it meant.)Tiffany wasn’t being over dramtic and even though she had a few typos she did get her point across. If you weren’t there you wouldn’t understand how it was to see your fellow classmates get beat by the police. You need to listen to what Tiffany said listen to us!!!!
Tiffany and Student — I was not witness to Friday’s events. That said, I would like to offer the following points of view (which I concede a priori may or may not apply, but what the heck, I’ll offer them for consideration).
When decisions or actions must be made, they are made based upon one’s evaluation of the information available at that time. Such information may be imperfect or incomplete (hence the common reference to “20/20 hindsight”).
One consequence of imperfect information is that the truth may be “somewhere in the middle” — that is, two parties may see different slices of the available information and hence disagree on the information itself.
Another consequence… consider a situation in which information updating is happening *really freaking quick*. Error in the processing of the available information is going to be likely.
Indeed, if the above were not the case, I’m not sure the stock markets would exist, for instance. And as you can imagine, much academic research is devoted to the study of information acquisition, processing, updating, etc.
But there’s another line of academic inquiry that is worth noting: simulation of crowd behavior. For a great article, check out: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070521094519.htm
In this article, they talk about a model that researchers have come up with to simulate “patterns of human behavior and movement in crowded cities” — the article notes that the model seeks to capture both human motion and emotion, and it goes on to name a number of potential and important applications; the one most relevant to the topic at hand is given as follows: “In the areas of public safety …, the model can be used to examine questions asking … what the early signs of anti-social behavior in large crowds are and how polarizing influences can be neutralized; and strategies that might be used to compel anti-social crowds into quiescence without the use of force.”
All of this to say that it might be possible that the events on Friday were sufficiently uncommon or complex that they belong to a class of events that scientists have devoted their professions to studying so as to help us all improve our understanding of same.
Again, I concede that this all may be bunk in relation to Friday’s event. But I raise the possiblity in the hopes that all involved can show some empathy and compassion toward each other as everyone tries to determine both what happened and what next.
In my returning to tierra firma now — :-) — I would trust that those who will be conducting any analysis of what happened will listen to everyone’s concerns and questions. You should know that the community does very much care about the welfare of its youth. And at the same time, the community also cares very much about the welfare of our police, and fire, and other personnel.
Peace out.
Tiffany,
I quote you:
“What do you mean why we were in the way, they were spraying mase we had to get out the way in order to not get sparyed.”
It’s MACE. You misspelled it in your other post also.
“They told a huge lie in the newspapper saying that they only sparyed mase once, and they didn’t use any other weapons.I saw them spary a boy directly in his face, I also saw them beat someone continuously with a night stick.”
Is it possible that the person making the statement did so BEFORE he had all the facts? Mistakes can be made in this situation. It may come out later that more than one spray of MACE was used and that one of the officers used a stick. This does not make the statement in the newspaper a lie only inaccurate.
“We saw three of four police on top of one person, it was horrible.
Do you know how many people it takes to subdue someone and arrest them if they are resisting? This is not television where one punch knocks people out. The fact is, if a police officer has to fight someone by himself he may have to use MORE force to arrest that person than he would if he had assistance. In the worst case situation, a lone officer may have to use deadly force to protect himself or others.
“You need to listen to what Tiffany said listen to us!!!!”
We are listening and the police would listen also if you have information they need. If you think you saw a police officer overstepping his authority, ask your parents to take you to the police station so you can make a formal complaint against them. You do not need to know the officers names to make a complaint.
Tiffany,
I think it is appalling (really awful) that the students behaved the way they did. A fake bomb threat is one thing, and could happen anywhere, but students not understanding HOW SERIOUSLY police take bomb threats, and not respecting the authority of the police, in a school no less, makes me think you are lucky they use mace these days. Like those kids throwing rocks at cars and then comming at the police with a hammer. That kid should praise God every day for mace. I’ll bet those cops were badly outnumbered, and I feel sorry for your teachers.
In RTD: Petersburg Police find excessive force wasn’t used at high school