‘It’s a war zone’: Hallway fight ends with pepper spray at Kenwood, but district data doesn’t show increase in violence

CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Students and parents have voiced concerns about an increase in fights in schools over the last several weeks, with one student calling the situation at Kenwood High in particular a “war zone.” At least one of the fights at KHS ended with a School Resource Officer deploying pepper spray in a crowded hallway.

However, data from the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System doesn’t necessarily reflect an increase in violence.

‘War zone’

One senior at Kenwood High, 17-year-old Trinity Bell, told Clarksville Now she was leaving a school bathroom on Feb. 2 when she walked into a cloud of pepper spray.

“So the way that the hallway is, it’s like a cross, and I was coming out of the bathroom and there was just a big cloud of pepper spray, and I didn’t even realize a fight was going on until after everything was broken up and there was yelling,” Trinity said.

She said she started coughing, her eyes were burning and her nose running. She said she was one of 12 students who had to be sent home with a reaction to the pepper spray.

“My face actually got really swollen and I had to go to the doctor for it,” Trinity said, adding that she was treated with Benadryl and an EpiPen because the reaction was so severe.

“In the past two weeks, we’ve probably had the same amount fights that we had in the first semester altogether,” Trinity said. “They (school administrators) address it on the intercom, they’re just like, ‘You guys are going to get suspended if you get into a fight.’ But nothing is really changing about it, if that makes sense.”

Another student said he too didn’t know why the fight on Feb. 2 began, and he also happened to be coming out of a nearby bathroom when he walked into the pepper spray.

“I was coming out of the bathroom at Kenwood (High School), the one by the JROTC hallway, and I came out and was walking and they just started fighting,” 17-year-old Isaiah Ladd said. “And then the officer just started spraying, so when I came out of the bathroom I already had started smelling that spray stuff; it went up my nose.”

He, too, described the burning sensation.

“It’s a war zone,” Isaiah said of the situation at Kenwood with the frequency of fights.

While both students estimated there had been close to 12 fights at Kenwood High over the last three weeks, CMCSS spokesman Anthony Johnson said there were only five.

Discipline data

Students and families may feel as though there’s been an increase in violence across the district, but the numbers don’t support that sentiment.

Clarksville Now reached out to CMCSS for data about the frequency of fights. The following table shows the number of students per year who received a disciplinary log entry for an incident involving the keyword “fight.”

Johnson said the disciplinary entries could be related to a physical altercation, a threat of a physical altercation or some other disciplinary measure involving the keyword “fight,” and that these are not the numbers of students each year who engaged in physical violence.

Additionally, Johnson said it should be noted that the 2019-20 school year ended abruptly in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and students were not in school for the last 11 weeks of the year, so the number of log entries represent only about three-fourths of a full school year.

Comparing 2021-22’s numbers with 2019-20’s numbers shows a sharp decrease in elementary disciplines involving a “fight” of some kind. The middle school and high school numbers seem to be on par with the 2019-20 figures, considering we’re already halfway through February.

As for the low figures during 2020-21, only around 60% of students were attending classes in-person the first semester, and around 70% in-person the second semester.

Even though the fights and discipline for such might not be increasing in school data, other problematic behaviors have. Earlier this school year, the district reported $20,000 worth of damage to its buildings as a result of TikTok challenges that promoted vandalism and property destruction.

Pepper spray in schools

Clarksville Now reached out to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, which oversees the SROs, about the use of pepper spray in school buildings.

“Like all other law enforcement agencies, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office does maintain a policy on use of force. The use of Freeze +P (pepper spray) is part of the policy,” Brandon said in a statement to Clarksville Now.

“In response to the fight at Kenwood, the SRO first attempted to de-escalate the situation through verbal commands. When the students did not listen to verbal commands and continued to physically fight each other, the SRO acted in accordance with policy and utilized Freeze +P to stop the fight.”

She added that anyone in “close proximity may be affected by the aerosol from the spray.”

The students said the use of pepper spray was uncalled for.

“Whenever I got pepper-sprayed, the cop (SRO) didn’t have to use that much pepper spray. It was two boys fighting – he could have handled that,” Trinity said. “There was no reason for a cloud of pepper spray to be there.”