Five 13-year-old students charged after fight near Oak View Middle School

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

NEWBERRY, Fla. – Five 13-year-olds have been charged with misdemeanor battery following a fight after school on Wednesday.

According to Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, Oak View Middle School’s School Resource Deputy (SRD) received word of a potential fight involving multiple students and followed a large group at about 4 p.m. as they went to a nearby business. He encouraged one of the subjects to go home, and as the student turned toward home, the SRD returned to the school to get his patrol car so he could continue to follow the group.

A fight developed off-campus and involved five 13-year-old suspects attacking a 14-year-old victim. The suspects have been charged with misdemeanor battery via sworn complaint.

  • Outstanding work by the SRO for going the extra distance on this. Off-campus, it would have been easy to look the other way. Student safety is a responsibility from School to home but not often done. Hopefully, they learn this type of gang activity will not be tolerated at this school or community.

    • Let’s not forget the small details of the student telling the students that he was going to come to school the following day to shoot all the black people. That’s a small detail that was seemed to be left out of the officers report. Let’s not condone that in the community as well.

      • Was that before or after he got assaulted? Not condoning, just wondering.

          • Again, a little odd. Taking fists to a gunfight? We all know how well that usually turns out. I’ve yet to know of a SRO who if notified a gun is/has been taken to school, chooses to follow a group of students & react vs intervene & be proactive.

          • Again, the statement was made at the coffee shop. The student stated he was going home to retrieve the gun and the kids jumped on him. Don’t speak if you aren’t prepared.

          • Prepared for what? I missed the part where the student said in the coffee shop he was going home to get a firearm.
            If you were one of the kids he said it to in the coffee shop, don’t you think it have been wiser to alert an adult rather than to enact gang like assault on an unarmed student?. There was apparently an SRO nearby.

          • There’s a lot of parts are missed is the point. The coffee shop made the alert of a child threatening to have a gun, officer responded and told the student to go home versus retain him for investigation or safety in the matter. If he seen a group (not a gang) of students after one child, why leave to retrieve a vehicle? You guys take a piece of article and put it in stone. Officer Campbell failed these students in this case. Why would you leave a hostile crowd of students at any point.

          • We can see safety & security is not your strong suit. The SRO would not have told a kid who had a gun to go home. I’m quite sure the officer conducted some degree of investigation and concluded the kid didn’t have a gun. As far as the officer leaving, he probably didn’t expect the remaining kids to form their own lynch mob to enact their own sense of justice.
            The conclusion is, kids that attacked the one kid were charged, the kid who didn’t have a weapon was not. Not yet anyway.

        • Definitely before. The officer responded because he was told that someone had a gun.

      • Exactly, he should of been EXPELLED for making a THREAT !!!! but that does NOT excuse the children’s behavior, they were WRONG for ganging up on that student period!!!!!! That’s why parents NEED to TEACH their children at home, treat OTHERS like you want to be treated!!!! CHARITY starts at HOME!!!!!!!!!!!

        • Finally, someone with sense! Definitely punish the kids for their actions but why is the information about the cause not being said. ACCOUNTABILITY.

  • I condone the officer for keeping eye on the students, but all the information should have been in the report of what cause this.

    • Do you realize your English sucks?
      …“That’s why it start”? “All the information should have been in the report of what cause this”?
      I don’t believe those are typos…
      Did you get a high school diploma?

      • You get the point ? I’m not going back n forth with you.Whether, I got a high school diploma or GED , if that makes you happy!!!!

  • Sounds like this kid was bullied therefore prompting the threat. Yep let’s hear ALL of the story.

  • FIRST: When the odds get to be more than one on one it becomes a gang mentality.
    SECOND: If the kid threatened to bring a firearm to school the kids should have reported it to the SRO.
    THIRD: Can you imagine the type of society it would be if we all take the law into our own hands? All the work and life of Dr. King down the drain! Sounds like both sides of this situation need to chill down and realize that school shootings or gang attacks won’t be tolerated in this area. PERIOD!!!

  • This story leaves much to be desired, like facts about what happened. That said, I’m inclined to think these kids were divided along racial lines, I could be wrong, I hope I’m wrong but I doubt it.

    • Yes. And some of the commenters have chips on their shoulders…i can imagine how ignorant their children are if you can’t speak proper English and talk BEV…the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. God bless MLK.

      • It’s “I” not “i.”
        One other note, since you utilized the plural of “commenter” in the context of making a point, the subject of “you can’t” should have reflected the same plurality by using “they.”
        Just trying to help.😁

  • So it seems like the adults are listening to kids I was there and he did not say he had a gun he was there to fight another kid the kid did no show when the officer came over there he told us to go home and the kid started calling us the n-word. It was about to be another fight but dep. stopped it. A group of the boys ran the way that the boy went and they said they were going to get him I did not go that way and then I saw the video. I see these boys every day and they wanna be hard gang gang yea I can spit facts and tell it all

    • Good job! So maybe he should not have used racial slurs as our world is already in a racial crisis for no apparent reason. Those words were used in times in which we no longer live anymore. More families are mixed race in todays world and we shouldn’t use words that we can’t even be taught HISTORY on in schools but I guess that’s a sign that it starts in the home. SN: The deputy himself stated he was told someone had a gun, once he got there he realized there was more than one altercation going on.

  • Thank you to The one who knows!

    These young kids are heavily influenced by TV and videos on the glory and money in gang violence. Early teens, whether black or white, is a very difficult period in establishing self esteem and sense of belonging.

    I’ve seen first hand what bullying can do to a young child.
    These kids need an alternative to help them build self confidence. Like the music, shop or theater production programs, that our schools have eliminated from the schools.

    If this isn’t corrected then more parents will be home schooling their children.

  • That boy always say stuff like that we just use to it he came back to school the next day and was talking trash but y’all going to believe what y’all want to believe because if they said he had a gun why they run after him that’s stupid

  • Root of the issue is at home and the parents of these kids, or lack thereof.

    If you’re one of the parents of those involved, time to get real. Your child will eventually end up in jail or worse, there is no bright future ahead for your child if this behavior continues. You can deny it, but deep down you fear this because you know it’s truth. You can blame society, you can blame other kids or adults, but years from now you’ll just be yelling at the clouds after your child ruins their life, when it’s too late. The time is now, you fix it now. Do the right thing. Help your child, raise them right, show them there is purpose and value on this Earth beyond what they know, or think they know. Teach them, and they will teach others, perhaps even your grandkids and their grandkids. It starts at home.

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