Palmetto’s fight week

Over the past week, Palmetto’s halls have been abuzz with gossip regarding this year’s unofficial “fight week.” Beginning on Monday, May 4, allegedly over money regarding a drug transaction, a group gathered at Briar Bay Park after school to witness the first of two big fights.

Originally a scheduled fight between two Palmetto sophomores and an ex-Palmetto student, many more people showed up and got involved in the brawl. Eventually, a bystander broke it up and an ambulance rushed two individuals with concussions to the hospital.

“I saw the fight on Snapchat and I think it’s pretty crazy how things like that happen in nice neighborhoods,” senior Antonio Aninat said. “Things like this could be easily prevented if the police weren’t involved in other nonsense.”

The Palmetto Bay Police Department arrived to break up the fight and ordered everyone to go home.

According to the Palmetto Bay Police Department, “There is no specific protocol for high school fights. We treat it like a regular fight. We separate everyone and tell everyone to go home. We go out there and do what we need to do.”

Although the students will receive no administrative consequences by the school, four police officers were sent to one of the involved student’s homes after rumors surfaced regarding him bringing a gun to school.

On Wednesday, May 6, students flocked to Chapman Field Park after school to witness the next brawl. Again planned, the fight involved two junior boys who exchanged blows after one claimed he was robbed of about $200, resulting in a hospital visit by one of the boys who dislocated his shoulder. Once again, neither student faced any repercussions from the school administration.

“There were at least a good 50 people there,” junior Justin Ouaknine said. “It seemed like the tensions were quite high and it was just a hostile environment as a whole.”

Although unrelated, both these fights quickly took over social media. Individuals involved in the fights, as well as bystanders there just to root for their friends or witness the action, live snapchatted and tweeted videos. A segment of one videos made it onto the Twitter account @ThirtySecFights, an account with over 415 thousand followers.

“Over the years, people have developed a sense of needing to live their lives in public. People see the reality shows and all the attention that those people get and they have the platform to put themselves in the public eye so they go for it,” psychologist Dr. Armando Incera said. “Posting things like fights come from a strong narcissistic component. Our society has become oriented towards the public eye and has left the identity of living life private behind. Teens want to gain fame, get attention, and elevate their profile somehow within their social circles and these social media platforms is how they do it.”

While some students marvel at the drama and enjoy watching the punches being thrown on their social media feeds, others feel it will not solve anything.

“People should be spending their time studying for AP exams, not laughing at fights on social media,” junior Annabel Weinbach said. “Fighting is not going to resolve any of their problems and they just look bad posting it online.”

Although the fights were held after school hours and off campus, students can be seen wearing Palmetto attire in the videos that have gone viral and continue to circulate through social media.

“We handle these situations through school to the best extent we can,” Principal Dr. Allison Harley said. “We can only act on things that are reported to us and all too many times, things are reported after the fight.”