Fellow classmates sound off in aftermath of fight

LYNN – Fourteen-year-old Shyanne Wolfe learned the consequences of apathy Monday after she was suspended for watching a brutal fight between two of her Lynn English High School classmates without doing anything to stop the attack.”I was there. It’s my fault. I just shouldn’t have been there,” Wolfe said.Wolfe said it was her brother who posted the original fight video to YouTube and she received a three-day suspension for her role, which she said she regretted.She said the fight “wasn’t really exciting” to watch and it wasn’t even the first time the girls had fought.According to Principal Thomas Strangie, school officials gathered the nearly 30 students involved in the fight that took place during last week’s winter vacation, Monday just after homeroom. The two female fighters were suspended for five days each and the onlookers were suspended one, three or five days depending on their level of participation.Wolfe said school officials told the students they should have called police rather than egg on the two girls. All students are expected to attend an assembly Tuesday in reference to the fight, she said.Freshman Kayla Rodriguez said talk around the school Monday was “drama, drama, drama.”Rodriguez said she is close friends with one of the fighters and she didn’t attend the fight but she did watch the online video.”I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t stand to watch her get beat up and no one did anything,” she said. “I think someone should have stopped it, instead people stood around with video cameras like it was a joke and it wasn’t.”Students’ opinions were mixed regarding the suspensions.Sophomore Cynthia Thin, 16, said she wasn’t surprised the school handed out suspensions to everyone involved, but that “kids fight” and she thought the media attention was too much.”English is pretty strict. They’ll do anything to stop (kids fighting),” she said.But 18-year-old Johalex Hernandez called the suspensions unwarranted because the fight didn’t happen on school property. She said fights among English students are not common, but the students “should have known” they would be disciplined as soon as the video hit the Internet.Branden Seng, a cadet gunnery in the Jr. ROTC program, didn’t think the punishment went far enough.”I think it should have been more severe,” he said. “They should have been held more accountable.”Seng, who admitted he had viewed the video, said he was also upset that two of the bystanders seen on the video were girls wearing what looked to be like Jr. ROTC fatigues.”We learn about leadership and setting an example, and what they were doing was the exact opposite,” he said.”I got mad when I saw that,” agreed junior Christopher Bremon, also a member of the Jr. ROTC program.Bremon said he did not know the cadets watching the fight in the video but if he learns who they are he will confront them.”I would ask them why they didn’t try and stop the fight,” he said.Desiree Marshall, a private in the Jr. ROTC program, said she is concerned that the fight hurts the school’s reputation.”If we get awards for drill team or the basketball team does really well it goes straight away because of this,” she said.Seniors Robert Donahue and Lex Melendez and 16-year-old sophomore Bella Digrazia agreed the fight does not enhance the school’s image.”It’s stupid,” Donahue said. “It’s a bad image for the school. I just want to be done with it.”Melendez, 18, lamented how the viral video made his high school look, but said girl fights from all over the country are posted online all the time on the popular website “World Star Hip Hop.””They deserved to be suspended – they’re (representing) their school with their name tags on in the video,” Melendez said. “And it makes Lynn look bad.”Digrazia’s mother Karen called the fight “a 21st Century barbaric gladiator sport” but said it didn’t surprise her that it involved girls.”Girls tend to be less tolerant,” she said. “Girls ponder and plan, and premeditate.”She said when she first learned of