PRINTThe young and the reckless
An update on crime at Hickman and Rock Bridge
ILLUSTRATION: TARYN WOOD
September 24, 2009 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Oct. 15, 2008, Hickman High School: Students gather in the hallway and form a circle around two girls who are fighting. An administrator boldly comes to break it up but is pulled to the ground. The girls break loose. The crowd is loud and screaming profanities as a school resource officer arrives and tosses a third girl to the side. Soon after, two students are arrested. All the while, another student has been recording the chaos on her camera and will later post the incendiary video on YouTube.
That film in turn made the brawl a big deal. In addition to getting attention for weeks in Columbia newsrooms and being covered by media outlets in nearby cities, the fight made national news on MSNBC. The fervor was largely due to the actions of the school resource officer (SRO), which many viewed as too rough. But it was also rooted in a fear shared by parents and students: the thought that high schools, even in mid-sized, Midwestern towns, can be dangerous places.
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- Through the Years
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In the 2008-2009 school year, there were 55 fights at Hickman, school principal Mike Jeffers says. That’s an increase of about 10 fights compared to the year before. Jeffers attributes the increase to outside sources. “Most of the time it’s things that spill over from the community into the school that lead to the fights,” he says. Often that means two groups will have a conflict over the weekend, and things will re-erupt when they see each other at school on Monday, he explains.
Gage Caszatt, a junior at Hickman, says fights also happen because guys are trying to prove themselves. He leans forward, interest piqued as he recalls a violent brawl: “I saw a fight,” he says. “It was actually pretty cool.” Caszatt stops himself. “I probably shouldn’t get excited about this, but it was pretty crazy. One guy beat the other guy up pretty bad. There was probably a four-foot trail of blood in the hallway.” He measures the distance with his hands. “(The fight) was over a girl.”
Caszatt says that many of the fights at Hickman are due to rumors and gossip, and he adds that there are so many people, it’s impossible not to have fights. He treats it as a status quo, and Columbia Police Department Capt. Brad Nelson is of a similar mind: “Yes, there are fights,” Nelson says. “Do I think they are out of control? No, I do not.”
Rock Bridge Principal Kathy Ritter downplays fights at her school, and she clams up when it comes to substance abuse. Ritter says that some Rock Bridge students have been disciplined for drug-related offenses, but she is unwilling to speak more on the subject. A junior at Rock Bridge, however, says there are drug and alcohol issues that could be better addressed.
“People bring in alcohol in Gatorade bottles,” says the student, who asked not to be named. She explains that officers check students for contraband and usually catch them, but she thinks they could do more. Of Rock Bridge’s 75 police reports filed last year, six were for narcotic drugs and three were for liquor violations.
Jeffers is more open about substance abuse at Hickman. He explains that there are typically two or fewer drug-related incidents per month, which is in tune with the statistics: Of the 125 reports filed last year for offenses at Hickman, 11 were related to narcotic drugs and two to alcohol. Students have come back from lunch under the influence, he says, and in the 2008-2009 year, students often brought their parents’ prescription drugs to school and shared them. “Yeah, I know people who bring drugs to school,” Caszatt says matter-of-factly. He explains that he and most of his peers usually don’t say anything because they don’t want their friends to get in trouble.
Both schools are having problems with teen smokers, though that is perhaps unsurprising: According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, nearly a quarter of high school students in America smoke cigarettes. The unnamed Rock Bridge student says school administrators and SROs know where kids are going to smoke but do little about it. “All they say is, ‘Don’t do it on our property,’” she says. “They don’t try and stop it.” Caszatt says Hickman students smoke at a nearby Dairy Queen but that the SROs sometimes come over and check IDs. Nelson acknowledges that officers know some places where students go to smoke and says they try to control it as best they can. Last year only three reports were filed regarding tobacco use — zero at Hickman and three at Rock Bridge.
Both schools also deal with theft, especially in this age of iStuff, and both principals urge students to keep a close eye on their electronics. Last year, 29 reports involving theft were filed at Rock Bridge, and 39 were filed at Hickman. The latter even dealt with an instance of motor vehicle theft in December.
Occasionally, the schools come up against weapons possession, one of the most worrisome school crimes. Jeffers recalls a day when a Hickman student came to school with a handgun in his backpack. “The student had been threatened that something would happen to him after school,” Jeffers says. He explains that the armed boy had no intention of harming anyone at school but only meant to protect himself later. Fortunately, administrators were able to avert any potential violence after receiving a call alerting them that the student had a gun.
School resource officers weren’t brought in that day, but when crimes are committed, they’re called to the scene. Both principals say SROs are great assets to the schools. Not only are they there to help in disciplinary situations, but they also provide educational programs for students. Nelson feels that the schools will inevitably have crime because of their sizes — Hickman has 2,005 students and Rock Bridge has 1,823 — but he doesn’t think students are in danger. Police spokeswoman Jessie Haden agrees. “With populations of these sizes, we should be naïve to think that some of these young adults are not doing drugs or committing crimes,” she says.
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