School Fight Leads to Arrest

A Bastrop student is arrested after getting into a fight at school, but her mother says shes being treated unfairly because shes black. Any parent would be upset if they felt their child was being punished unfairly, but it becomes even more personal when they feel their being targeted because of their race. That is what this mother says happened to her daughter and she is speaking up about what she says is discrimination. “They have messed up my babys life,” says Brenda Schoefield. “This is the last child they going to destroy over here in Morehouse Parish." Schoefield is furious because she says her 13-year-old daughter Rachel now has a rap sheet. Rachel got into a fight at East Side Elementary two weeks ago after she says a white student kicked her when she walked by the swings on the playground. When Rachel told her to stop the other girl apparently tired to hit her with the swing. Rachel admits she then grabbed the girls’ wrists to make her stop, but her mother is angry about what happened next. "Its a crowd of people in there, they made plans to have my baby locked up." Ms. Schoefield is upset because she says no one from the school contacted her to tell her that her daughter was being arrested, but the school board says they followed proper procedure and had nothing to do with her child being arrested. Ralph Davenport is in charge of discipline for Morehouse parish schools. "The parent of the child involved in the altercation is the one that contacted the police." Schoefield claims another fight where a white student slapped a black student ended with the white student only getting time-out for a week. “Kids get in fights all the time. If you going to call the police on my daughter, you should have called the police on them other kids that was fighting." She says. But davenport says he has to check into whether those claims are true and the discipline that took place has nothing to do with race. "I dont feel this is a black white issue and it definitely wont be handled as a black white issue as far as I’m concerned" Davenport says if Schoefield claims are true the students wouldnt be disciplined or suspended this week because they have to be present for mandatory leap testing going on all week. But he says if students are involved in a fight, they should all be disciplined the same. (Copyright 2008, NBC 10/FOX 14 News)