VIDEO: Middle school fight spills from classroom to hallway; student stomped on
PHILADELPHIA -- New video of a fight at a school in Northeast Philadelphia is under investigation.
The cell phone video was recorded inside Woodrow Wilson Middle School on January 15. District officials were unaware of the incident as of Thursday, but they're now looking into it.
Parents and students say as alarming as the video is, it's not that unusual at Wilson or at nearby Northeast High School anymore.
The cell phone video shows a large number of students involved in the fight. It appears to start in a classroom and escalate out in the hallway where punches are thrown and one male student gets stomped repeatedly on the head.
"I've heard that happens a lot. That's very common because the school is overpopulated," parent Rachel Schumacher says.
Schumacher's daughter Rebeka is in the seventh grade. She picks up her daughter after school and has her own videos showing fights after school out on Cottman Avenue as Wilson Middle and Northeast High dismiss right around 3 p.m.
"They're getting restless. There's too many children. There's too much overpopulation with the budget cuts - that's the big problem," she said.
Her daughter said she witnesses small fights all the time and called them a distraction.
"Yeah, definitely for learning. Every time there's a fight outside the door I just look and the teacher is like, 'pay attention,'" Rebeka said.
Victoria Santiago has two younger siblings at Wilson.
"That's ridiculous. How they just let the kids beat on that child like that," she said.
The school is staffed with Philadelphia and school police. Schumacher believes there needs to be a larger police presence, especially at dismissal, and class size should be addressed.
Rebeka said cell phones aren't even allowed in the school, but she's glad someone had one.
"It's a good thing that they do so we can get more protection in school," she said.
Philadelphia police did take an assault report, but the victim and his mother were uncooperative, and so no charges were ever filed. In fact, police tell us the victim broke a window in the building after the fight and he himself was charged with vandalism.
