Fight reported near Santa Rosa's Montgomery High; 2 teens arrested with weapons
SANTA ROSA -- Two Montgomery High School students were arrested by Santa Rosa police Friday after a report of a fight between several juveniles near the troubled school, authorities said.
Montgomery High has been dealing with issues of violence between students and weapons being brought onto campus since the fatal stabbing of 16-year-old Jayden Pienta at the school earlier this month.
A press release issued by the Santa Rosa Police Department said that officers responded to a report of a fight involving five or six Hispanic male juveniles on Matanzas Way just west of the school's campus. Arriving officers contacted two youths who were walking back to Montgomery High.
The two juveniles admitted to being at the fight, but claimed to just be spectators. At around the same time, three juveniles suffering from abrasions and markings sustained in the fight were in the principal's office with abrasions and markings from the fight. Those youths denied that a fight occurred.
Police said as they detained the two juveniles they saw outside school, officers noticed the odor of marijuana. The two youths were searched and marijuana was located. Additionally, one of the juveniles had a large knife in his backpack, and the second juvenile had a pair of metal knuckles in his front pocket.
The SRPD officer assisting at Montgomery High this week said he saw the juvenile with the backpack leave the school campus prior to the fight. That juvenile was arrested for possession of a knife on school grounds and transported to Memorial Hospital due to marijuana usage. We was later cleared to go to the Juvenile Justice Center. The other youth was arrested for possession of metal knuckles and transported directly to the Juvenile Justice Center.
The arrests were the latest involving students bringing weapons onto campus since the Pienta stabbing on March 1.
Two students were sent home a week ago when they were caught with knives on the Montgomery High campus Friday afternoon. When a parent called and informed authorities of the incident after being notified by school administrators, police investigated the incident and arrested the students, a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old the following day. On Monday, two students from two different Santa Rosa schools were also arrested for bringing knives to campus.
There have also been other stabbings at Bay Area schools, including a stabbing at a San Francisco middle school in North Beach Friday and a stabbing at Sunrise Middle School in San Jose Wednesday where police took a student into custody after allegedly stabbing a 15-year-old student who suffered a non-life-threatening injury.
