15 charged after fight last week outside Waterford High School

Most are students from Waterford or Stonington; brawl followed incident at basketball game

Waterford — Police said they have charged 15 people — all Stonington and Waterford high school students except for one — in connection with a fight last Thursday afternoon outside Waterford High School.

Two Stonington High School students were charged with second-degree assault, a felony, according to police. One of them also was charged with inciting to riot. According to state law, second-degree assault occurs when someone seriously injures another person. It carries a penalty of one to five years in prison.

Six other Stonington students, and one Stonington adult who was not a student, were charged with breach of peace, a misdemeanor.

Two Waterford High School stu- dents were charged with breach of peace and inciting to riot, police said. Four additional Waterford students were charged with breach of peace.

At 3:52 p.m. last Thursday, a caller reported that several cars with Stonington High School students — who were allegedly aiming to fight the Waterford students — had arrived at the Waterford High School parking lot, according to Waterford police. The students left, after being instructed to do so by a Waterford High School staff member.

But a high school staff member then called police at 4 p.m. to report that 20 students, from both schools, were fighting by the Miner Lane entrance to the school.

Police said when they arrived the fighting stopped. The officers

stopped a vehicle a short distance from the school and learned the individuals inside had been involved in the fight, the release stated.

The previous evening, a Stonington student had been ejected from a basketball game between the two schools at Waterford High School for throwing a water bottle onto the court and striking a student.

Police said most of the students charged are minors ranging between 15 and 17 years old, but at least one may be 18. Police do not publicly release the names of anyone charged with a crime who is 17 or younger except those charged with serious crimes such as first-degree sexual assault and murder.

Waterford police Lt. David Burton said Monday afternoon that the police investigation is ongoing. He said the police have not yet finalized the arrest report, due to the extensive work involved in making the arrests over the last several days, but expect to shortly finish the report and release the adults’ names. Police are required to release the names of anyone 18 and older charged with a crime.

Waterford police said they worked with the youth officers from both the Stonington and Waterford police departments during the investigation.

School officials from Waterford and Stonington responded Monday to the arrests.

“This is an unfortunate incident that occurred,” Waterford Superintendent of Schools Thomas W. Giard III said in an email. “We continue to have high standards for all of our students. The high school administration has worked closely with the students involved and their families throughout the last few days as it relates to the incident. As with any situation of this sort, there are school and district policies and procedures which we follow when dealing with our students.”

He did not detail the specific policies and procedures.

Stonington Superintendent of Schools Van Riley said Monday that Stonington High School Principal Mark Friese and Assistant Principal Neal Curland had conducted a thorough investigation of the incident and school officials are taking the incident seriously. He said Stonington students were involved on three levels — those charged with assault, those involved in fights and those who were spectators.

“We’re going to make sure all the students involved receive the appropriate consequences, even those who were spectators,” Riley said. “We want to make sure they understand this is not appropriate behavior for any student. We hope this does not happen again.”

Friese declined Monday to describe how the school will punish the students involved in the fight.

“We are saddened this happened. The message is that we feel it is important that kids understand what our expectations are of them outside of school,” he said.