Eight girls from a Bay Area high school were arrested this week after police said they plotted and attacked another student.
The eight Sinaloa High School students, ages 12 to 14, were arrested Tuesday and booked into the Marin County Juvenile Center on suspicion of conspiracy and felony assault, according to the Novato Police Department.
Eight Northern California high school students were arrested after a planned assault on a fellow student that other students recorded, police said. The attack occurred after lunch at Sinaloa High School in the Marin County city of Novato.
(Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)
On May 24, the group met after lunch at school and planned to attack another student, authorities said.
When they attacked, other boys began recording it on their phones and inciting the fight, police said. A student tried to intervene but was also attacked; Both attacked students were hospitalized with moderate injuries.
A video broadcast by KTVU-TV showed a girl on the ground being punched and kicked by three other students.
Novato police, along with administrators from the Novato Unified School District and Sinaloa High School, launched an investigation and identified the group responsible for the attack, police said.
The students knew the fight was going to happen the day before it occurred, according to an email sent to parents obtained by the television station.
“This resulted in a large stampede of our students (several hundred of them) running across campus looking for a fight to see it happen,” school officials wrote. “This mob grew in size as they ran across campus, causing some students to fall and literally be run over by others.”
District officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday morning.
The school's principal, Christy Stocker, and other district administrators spoke with more than 200 parents at the school on Tuesday, according to the Marin Independent Journal. Parents of the students who were injured said they were physically fine but emotionally shaken.
“This was a horrific attack,” district Superintendent Tracy Smith said during the meeting, according to the outlet. “It is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
