Cinco de Mayo event marred by taunts, violence at Woodside High Cinco de Mayo event marred by taunts, violence at Woodside High (May 12, 2004)

** Red, white and blue used to harass red, white and green.

By David Boyce
Almanac Staff Writer

A nationalistic taunt flared into a racial incident with a potential for rioting during an annual school-wide Cinco de Mayo celebration at Woodside High School last week, but alert school staff quickly got the students back into their classrooms and defused the situation.

A long-planned open-air lunch on Wednesday, May 5, in the school quad ended in bottle-throwing disarray and competing chants of "Mexico" and "USA" after two white students with American flags draped across their shoulders walked through a group of students at lunch, including 200 to 300 Latino students.

"They walked right smack down the middle of the courtyard,'" Principal Linda Common told the Almanac. "What were they honestly thinking?"

The first bottle -- a plastic water bottle -- was thrown from the group carrying the American flags after they had moved some distance away from the quad, said senior Connor Driscoll, who said he observed the incident while holding a student back from joining the fracas. About 50 Latino kids stood up and more bottles were thrown, Connor said.

Some of the bottles were glass, Connor said. One student was hit in the cheek with a glancing blow from a glass bottle, but it was not a substantial injury, said Ms. Common.

After learning what was going on, Ms. Common said she used the public address system to alert the staff not already in the courtyard to head over there immediately and get the students back into the classrooms.

In encouraging students to go back to their classrooms, Ms. Common said that anyone found in the hall could lose the right to go to the prom. That was effective, she said.

Sheriff's deputies and officers from the Redwood City Police Department arrived on the scene after it was all over, said Deputy Sheriff Shawn Parks, the school liaison to the Sheriff's Office.

About 12 patrol cars and motorcycles were gathered around the school at one point, said Bronwyn Hogan, the Sheriff's Office public information officer.

Two of the white students who provoked the incident were suspended "for instigating a possible riot," Ms. Common said, adding that one parent of a suspended student apologized for the incident. More suspensions are likely, she said.

With a month of planning behind it, "this was a big day," Ms. Common said. It is also the one day that Woodside allows Latino students to wear a red, white and green headband, she added.

"We value our Latino students and wanted them to have an enjoyable day," she said. "Some of these kids wanted to harass (the Latino kids) and not make it their day. ... They tried to wreck everything for everyone. ... You're really talking about a small group of kids that have their own prejudices."

"Generally, the kids get along really well," Ms. Common said. When the school year began, she said assistant principal Cliff Alire asked a group of students to remove Confederate flag decals from their vehicle windows. "They were trying to form a group," she said, sounding a note of familiarity with the priorities of a teenage mind.

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