LIBERTY — At least 12 students were suspended from Amite County High School on Tuesday after a fight broke out during a morning break between classes, the latest fracas coming less than a week after a fight forced a lockdown at the school.
The cause of the fight remains under investigation by police and Amite County school officials.
Liberty Police Chief Nathan Toney said the 9:30 a.m. fight occurred near the school cafeteria, adding that 10 to 12 students were involved.
Toney said all of the students involved were juveniles, and no weapons were found. He said injuries included primarily bumps and bruises “and possibly a few bloody noses.”
Superintendent of Schools Debbie Hopf said the students involved in the fight were suspended from school. Some of the suspensions, she said, were not for fighting, but for other misconduct such as using profanity.
Hopf said Tuesday that she has met with a number of parents concerned about their children’s safety.
She said school officials are expected to meet with law enforcement officials this week to discuss the situation and try and develop a plan to make the school safer.
Hopf said the fights are also expected to be discussed Thursday at the monthly meeting of the Amite County Board of Education. The meeting starts at 5:15 p.m.
ACHS is serving as a temporary campus for seventh- and eighth-graders from Liberty Elementary School, which is undergoing repairs and renovations from storm damage. Students in grades K through 3 soon will be transferred from Liberty Elementary to the high school, and will be in separate buildings just off the school campus.
Hopf said the seventh- and eighth-graders are separated from the high school students by several empty classrooms.
Hopf said the students have a different lunch time and use different doors to enter and leave school, go to lunch and physical education.
“They do not come in contact with the high school students (at the school),” Hopf said.
She said the elementary students also will be kept from the high school students after their transfer from Liberty Elementary.
The fight comes less than a week after law enforcement and school officials locked down Amite County High and searched classrooms, students, lockers and cars after receiving information that some students were bringing weapons to school in retaliation for an earlier fight after a junior high school football game.
That fight was between a junior high student from Gloster and an ACHS student from Liberty.
No weapons or drugs were found during the search.
Hopf said the school reported three fights last week prior to the lockdown.
She said the reasons for the fights appear to involve regional squabbles between students from Gloster and Liberty.
“When we ask the students what caused the fight, they say, ‘I don’t know,’ ” Hopf said. “But when we ask further, they say ‘Gloster and Liberty.’ ”
An Aug. 12 fight that began on the high school campus continued off the campus and resulted in a drive-by shooting in Gloster. Sheriff’s deputies arrested three adults and one juvenile in the shooting. No one was injured.
