Charges filed against juvenile in connection with fight at Belleville West High School
One student has been charged in juvenile court with aggravated battery on a school employee in connection with a fight April 10 at Belleville West High School that prompted the school to call police.
This student had been taken to the St. Clair County Juvenile Detention Center after the fight while three other students were released to their parents, a spokesman for St. Clair County State’s Attorney’s office said Tuesday.
Chris Allen, an assistant state’s attorney and spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, said he could not release the student’s name because this is a juvenile court case.
School District 201 Superintendent Jeff Dosier said Tuesday the disciplinary process is ongoing and he could not comment on specifics of the discipline due to privacy rights of the students.
Investigators have reviewed the school’s surveillance video of what happened, Dosier said.
The BND obtained copies of videos of the fight that was shot by one or more students. The videos shows dozens of students engaged in an uncontrolled brawl inside the school cafeteria.
A parent of a Belleville West student released the videos to the BND. It can be viewed here at bnd.com: https://www.bnd.com/news/local/crime/article229332329.html
The disciplinary process has been handled by the school administration so far and it hasn’t been brought to the District 201 school board.
The incident carried over from a fight that began April 9 and was reignited when one of the students confronted another at approximately 8:25 a.m. on April 10, Dosier said last week.
“This morning, there was a fight that started out out in the community last night amongst a couple of kids,” Dosier said at the time. “One came to school and confronted the student. I don’t know if both were involved in the situation last night. One was.”
Because the cafeteria was crowded with students awaiting the first-hour bell, the school resource officer made an immediate call for police backup.
“We are still talking to kids who were involved,” Dosier said. “It’s not OK to fight in school, as well as it is not OK to fight out in the community.”
This story was originally published April 16, 2019 at 3:00 PM.
