Police were yesterday morning called to the L’Aventure School on the West Bank Demerara after an invasion by a gang of six young men apparently seeking revenge for an attack on one of them the day before in a school brawl.
“Six of them came in a car,” a fourth form student of the school told Stabroek News yesterday. “If you see the jukker two of them had. They tried coming in from the front, but when they see this wasn’t possible they went around the back came though the field, scale the fence and start warring, pelting glass bottle all over. Everybody gone running because one time you hear they come with gun.”
The student said it was obvious “the boys came to brawl”.
On Thursday afternoon, one in the group was involved in a fight with another student over injuries sustained by his sister.
“They come back today because one a dem sister get pelt yesterday [Thursday] with a bottle and they fight already when school over. But they break it up and he say it ain’t done yet and today they going to see what going to happen today,” a student related.
A senior teacher informed that the incident occurred around 9.30 am. The teacher refuted reports that a student or the perpetrators had guns as well as claims that a teacher and a student were wounded. However, the educator said, glass bottles were thrown and four of the six perpetrators were recognised as students of the school. They will be dealt with, in accordance with the school rules as they relate to violent acts committed, this newspaper was told.
The young men were able to gain entry to the school’s compound from the back and the need for security was highlighted. The pasture, used as the school’s recreational grounds, had broken fencing and persons could scale a drain and jump the gates easily.
The principal of the school, when approached, said that investigations are ongoing and the media will be informed of the events and correspondence given by the relevant authorities, in keeping with protocol.
The district education officer yesterday held a meeting with staff and also told the press that investigations are ongoing.
Several students complained about the ongoing violence in the school and laid the blame at the feet of those who would have moved from the city to settle in Parfait Harmonie.
“This is not us. This was a peaceful school. It is the children who live in Dairy and Parfait that come from town come with their ‘warrish‘ attitudes. Ask anyone who lives in here. Half of these things never used to happen,” one student said.
At around 12:13pm police continued to patrol the public road, and placed students loitering on the roadways in minibuses.
Students also lamented the school’s filthy condition. Garbage was strewn all over in the yard. The pileup and littering, they claimed, was also as a result of the students who moved from the city.
At the back of the school, which seems to be the designated garbage area, there was a huge pile up and no evidence of it being a burn site or that there was an area for burial of the garbage. Throughout the yard there were plastic bottles, empty snack packets, straws, paper and other bits of litter. The stench was unbearable but this newspaper was told that it was partially attributed to it being an area used for rearing animals.
When the district education officer was asked about the filthy state of the school compound, she said she could not comment.
