Gilroy
– A rash of gang assaults at Brownell Middle School has
mobilized parents, who say the vast, unfenced campus isn’t safe
from teen intruders.
Gilroy – A rash of gang assaults at Brownell Middle School has mobilized parents, who say the vast, unfenced campus isn’t safe from teen intruders.
Girls from other middle schools have barged onto campus three times in the past four months, twice assaulting Brownell students. Principal Joseph DiSalvo said the bizarre attacks couldn’t be prevented, short of locking down campus. Students are safe there, he says – and most say they are. But the violence has rattled some parents, who point to a tangle of issues – security, fencing even language barriers – that feed the problem.
The trouble began in October when a 13-year-old girl who attends another Gilroy middle school barged onto campus at lunchtime and attacked a male student, shouting gang-related slurs. Campus supervisors phoned police as soon as they saw the student, but the girl had already attacked and fled when police arrived. The officers found her near campus.
Two months later, on Dec. 1, the same girl returned after school, joined by another 13-year-old girl who doesn’t attend Brownell. A campus supervisor turned them away, but not before they’d threatened another student, again using gang insults. Police confronted the girls off campus, and cited them for being a disruptive presence on school grounds.
Five days later, they were back, harassing students after school. Vice-principal Jim Gama spotted the girls and called School Resource Officer Cherie Somavia, who rushed to the campus from the intersection of Tenth and Alexander streets, a mile-and-a-half away. Gama couldn’t stop or arrest the girls himself, he said. Physically detaining a student could expose the school to serious legal liabilities. Gilroy Police Sgt. Kurt Svardal agreed. A citizen’s arrest can be dicey legal territory, which schools are loath to enter.
“We don’t want staff members tackling students unless we know they have a weapon and they’ll do something serious – then any of us should respond,” said DiSalvo. That day, the girls were equipped only with their fists.
By the time Somavia arrived, the girls had attacked a Brownell student – she wore a blue T-shirt, the victim’s mother explained – and shoved and punched Gama and a campus supervisor, as they tried to pull them away. The attackers split, bolting down Hanna Street, where Officer Somavia arrested them on battery charges.
“Since they’ve been released, they haven’t been around here,” said Somavia. “If they did, they’d be arrested.”
After the third attack, a handful of staff members filed worker compensation claims, from injuries sustained in the fight. Some immigrant students pleaded with their parents: Let’s go back to Mexico. Fed-up school officials lament the juvenile probation system, which first released one attacker in October after charging her with misdemeanor assault, and has now released both girls, on felony assault charges. Probation public information officer Delores Nnam said confidentiality laws bar her from commenting on this specific case, but “each youth matter is heavily reviewed by both the courts and the Probation Department prior to release.”
That doesn’t soothe school officials, who say probation was too easy on the girls.
“In my 20 years as an administrator, I’ve never had anything like this happen before,” said DiSalvo.
Despite the attacks, DiSalvo says Brownell students are safe. Four campus supervisors patrol the school, querying outsiders and dissolving fights. Video cameras dot the campus. Students can fill out bullying reporting forms, and an anti-bullying workshop is planned for this March. And if trouble erupts, Officer Somavia is a phone call away.
“I’ve examined our practices, our policies our relationships,” DiSalvo says. “There is nothing we could have done differently” to prevent the violence.
On a chilly Thursday afternoon, kids sprint from their classes, cracking jokes and gossiping as they wait for rides home. In a nearby practice room, a trombone warbles uncertainly. For many students, the incidents barely register, an episode forgotten between bells. “Oh – didn’t that happen to some eighth-grader?” asks one cherub-cheeked seventh-grader, giggling with friends after school.
“I feel safe here,” says Stefan Mercer, student body vice president, sitting alongside DiSalvo and Gama. “It hasn’t changed anything.”
And that’s what worries Angelica Juarez: Nothing has changed.
Juarez is one of many frustrated parents who say Brownell’s status quo is unsafe. Two weeks ago, dozens of parents packed a school board meeting, relaying their complaints through a Spanish translator. Some called for fences ringing Brownell’s block-long campus: others wanted a police officer posted when the last bell rings, to protect kids after school.
“We need more security,” said Juarez, whose daughter was attacked in December. “More police should be around at the entrance, so kids from other schools can’t come in.” As it is, she said, “My daughter is afraid to go to school.”
As Juarez spoke, her daughter shied behind a door in another room, refusing to come out. At a school board meeting, the girl wouldn’t speak until video cameras, used to record the meetings, were shut off. Many girls are still skittish after the attacks. When asked about the incidents Thursday, three ponytailed girls conferred in Spanish behind the floppy cuffs of their sweatshirts, before one announced, “She got in the middle of it, but she doesn’t want to talk about it, because she’ll cry.”
Other parents complained that DiSalvo and Gama, who speak little Spanish, can’t respond adequately to their concerns. The school employs two Spanish-speaking employees, who receive a stipend for translation services, and hired a Spanish-speaking counselor this year, but currently no Brownell administrators are fluent. The new Assistant Principal will speak Spanish, DiSalvo says, and concerned parents have been invited to assist in the interview process, conducted in English.
Among Latina students, the girl gang issue has loomed larger during the past five years. Now, “it’s typical,” said Sal Tomasello, principal of Ascension Solorsano Middle School. “The girls are no different than the boys.”
In Gilroy and elsewhere, schools report more fights between girls than between boys, said district safety officer Roger Cornia, a shift that’s happened since the millennium. Some know their targets; others pick on kids based on “gang stereotyping,” said Gama, “like speaking Spanish or wearing blue – which is why we counsel them not to wear it.” After the attacks, Somavia hosted a Jan. 10 meeting with Brownell parents, to teach them how to suss out gang symbols.
Avoid gangs, advises seventh-grader Mercer, and you’ll be safe. But the advice leaves Juarez at a loss. The lines can be blurry, with kids tagged for one gang or another based on their friends, or friends of friends.
“My daughter’s a good, respectful kid,” said Juarez. “She’s not in gangs, and she’s never had problems in school.” But wearing a blue T-shirt left her with a bloody nose, and a battered spirit.
When parents addressed the board two weeks ago, Superintendent Edwin Diaz said it was the first he’d heard of the incidents, though DiSalvo said he e-mailed Diaz Dec. 6, within an hour of the second attack. Diaz was in Monterey County Wednesday afternoon and could not be reached to clarify. On Jan. 5, parents met with Gail Donovan, Director of Assessment, Intervention and Program Evaluation, to discuss the attacks, and the school’s response.
To keep outsiders out of Gilroy schools, and wash gang colors from kids’ clothing, some parents suggested uniforms, a prospect that widens teens’ eyes with horror. DiSalvo backs the idea, but it fizzled at Brownell years ago, when so many parents won uniform waivers that the rule became pointless.
Fences are a popular idea, but district officials are skeptical. Even at fenced-in Gilroy High, warns Cornia, the barriers can be scaled – and scuffles often erupt among classmates anyway. DiSalvo favors installing a full-time School Resource Officer at Brownell, but neither Gilroy police nor the school district are flush with funds to hire a second one. Gilroy has one SRO, Somavia, to patrol and respond to calls throughout the school system; neighboring Morgan Hill, a smaller school district, has two School Resource Officers, Somavia notes.
Short of a full-time Brownell SRO, parents are questioning whether posting an officer at Brownell after school might deter attacks. Cornia said the decision to deploy another SRO would hinge on the number of students, and long-term crime patterns observed by police. When Christopher High School opens, he said, he’ll push for a second SRO. For now, he said, “I don’t see a need for that.”
“Any time you can have an officer on campus, it could deter things from happening,” Somavia said, “but is it feasible to have four SROs in the city of Gilroy? Probably not … and it’s something of an overkill.”
A second meeting is planned for Friday, Feb. 2 at the district office. Juarez plans to go, she says, and she’ll keep knocking on the district’s door until something changes: a fence, an officer, anything to give her daughter peace.
“It’s not safe enough,” Juarez said. “Nothing has happened.”
