On January 17, after the rivalry Smoky Hill and Eaglecrest boys basketball game, several fights broke out between students.
It is unclear at this time if the fights were between students from both schools or just one. Either way, the behavior is completely uncalled for and unnecessary.
Several videos of the fights are circling one showing an outdoor fight, with what looks to be a group of boys ganging up on one student. The targeted peer got picked up and body slammed onto the concrete. He appears to have had a seizure, and a female student was screaming for someone to call the police. The video ends there, and there’s no news about arrests or any updates on the hospitalized boy.
There were also claims about someone having a gun, and gunshots going off.
To me, it makes no sense why all of this has become such a normalized thing. Something used as entertainment, and a way to show off. Everyone seems to think that violence is the best way to solve a problem, and it’s like nobody thinks about the deeper consequences.
These fights, especially the one that happened outside of Eaglecrest, can land several students in deep trouble. But that wasn’t the thought going through the boys’ minds at the moment. I don’t know why the fight broke out, but with the history of physical altercations between students and the reasons they happened, it’s not likely that it warranted physical violence.
That leads to my next point, who is teaching these kids that it’s okay? Are parents not raising their kids with the idea of ‘violence isn’t the answer’ anymore? Not everyone is raised the same, but no parent should want their student to solve all their disputes through fist fights.
Social media and peers play a huge role in the spread, of course. I’ve often found myself scrolling through Instagram or Tiktok pages dedicated to school fights, but none of them make me want to hit someone else.
Last night wasn’t the only occurrence, of course. Just last week, two girls got into an altercation at the side docks of Smoky Hill. One didn’t want the fight, but the other kept yelling and eventually just grabbed her hair and started hitting. All of it was over a boy.
That easily could have been resolved with words, an agreement between the boyfriend and friend, or something civil. Instead, one of the girls decided she was going to fight to get her point across.
Fights have become such a big problem over the past few years in middle and especially high schools, and they need to end. It’s creating an unsafe environment at our school, and will become an even larger issue for the future students of Smoky. We need to stop normalizing violence between peers.
