ASSAULT ON DAVIS CAMPUS
The CM PRESS received a report yesterday (3/21) that a fifth or sixth grader on the Davis School campus was the victim of an unprovoked assault by at least three older, and bigger, High School students who appeared to have entered the campus from Costa Mesa High School and who, for no reason, attacked the younger and smaller kid and left him on the ground. Davis is a 4th grade to 6th grade school so the kids there are from about 9 to 12 years old.
The incident is reported to have happened between about 2:50 and 3:00 p.m. when school was out and the City of Costa Mesa was running its after school program on the campus.
Information is sketchy and the CM PRESS seems to be getting a run-a-round from authorities, but it appears that the attackers have not been apprehended.
At this time, the CM PRESS does not know if the attackers were gang members or not, but we do know that Davis School has often had gang graffiti painted on the buildings and that this graffiti is quickly painted over by staff.
We are also concerned that the so-called intervention (as opposed to enforcement) strategy of some in local government and the NMUSD may be putting kids in danger because the interventionists may want to hide or downplay the reality of assaults and gang activity in order to calm fears of parents while at the same time furthering the interventionists' incorrect strategy of looking the other way when "minor assaults" and crimes take place so that the interventionists can befriend gang members, instead of having them arrested, in order to try to talk them out of being in gangs.
Our feeling that someone may be trying to cover this up wasn't assuaged when, as we were gathering information on this story, one official apparently tried to just have us go away by giving us an oil on troubled waters statement that the school was aware of the incident and that it was all taken care of (read, "It was no big deal. Hardly worth talking about").
When we persisted in our questions and demanded that we be told what was actually done, we were put on hold. The same person then came back on the line a few minutes later and told us that the "incident was under investigation." So, which is it? Is it no big deal or a big deal that requires investigation? Your guess is as good as ours.
In addition, as we were checking and double checking facts, we had one official on one telephone line who told us that the young kid who was assaulted complained of a hurt back, but that it was minor and no medical care was needed, while an official on the other line, at the same time, told us that the kid wasn't hurt at all. Both officials apparently had the same information.
We believe the official who said the kid was hurt was truthful, because we also heard that from a second source. So, why did the other official try to tell us the kid wasn't hurt at all?
Now, we don't want to make too big a deal out of this, but we believe our schools should be violence free and that parents and community members should be told the whole truth about such incidents and not be given a run-a-round.
When the safety of our children is at stake, we'd rather err on the side of caution.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
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