Student suffers concussion in fight

Cellphone recordings show crowd filming the incident, not stopping it

A Saugus High School student was still recovering from head injuries suffered Monday following a vicious fight Friday night, which was witnessed by more than 40 teens.

Dozens appeared to have recorded the fight — which left one boy hospitalized with a concussion — on their cellphones.

One of the students — the names of both combatants are being withheld by The Signal because they are minors — was punched repeatedly by another boy in the parking lot near Lowe’s and In-N-Out Burger in Saugus on Friday night.

After the fight, the boy was loaded into a car by his friends and taken to Central Park.

Paramedics with the Los Angeles County Fire Department were called to the park on Bouquet Canyon Road shortly after 9:10 p.m., Fire Department spokeswoman Vanessa Lozano told The Signal Monday.

“This came in as an assault, a head injury,” she said.

The boy’s father told The Signal Monday that the injuries could have been much worse than they are, despite their severity.

Paramedics treated the injured boy at Central Park then rushed him to hospital at 9:28 p.m

The incident has left the boy’s parents stunned,

worried about their son’s recovery and weighing their options.

Perhaps most troubling to the parents is the fact that not one of the 40 teens, seen in video recordings of the altercation clustered around the boys, did anything to stop the fight. No one stepped up “That’s what got us really upset,” the boy’s father told The Signal. “That nobody seemed to try and stop it...We have concerns.

“He is still in a lot of pain. He’s lethargic when we’re trying to get him out of bed,” he said.

The young basketball player, obviously interested in sports, caught only 15 minutes of the Super Bowl until pain forced him back into bed.

“The light and noise bothered him,” his father said. “He watched about 15 minutes and then asked to go back to bed.”

No arrest

No arrest was made in connection with the altercation, a spokesman for the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station said Monday, referring to the fight as a “mutual combat.”

The fight began shortly after 9 p.m. Friday in the Lowe’s Home Improvement parking lot.

“I spoke with one of our managers who was there that evening, and he confirmed that there was an incident involving police sometime around 9 to 9:30,” said Steve Salazar, manager of corporate communications for Lowe’s Home Improvement.

“He said the incident took place closer to the parking area outside the In-N-Out and Dunkin’ Donuts,” he said. “He said police and emergency vehicles were in the area.”

When the fight ended, someone at the fight drove the injured Saugus student to Central Park, on Bouquet Canyon road near Alamogordo Road and the south entrance to the park, just under a mile from the fight.

“I was notified about 15 minutes after the fight,” the boy’s father told The Signal, describing the people who called him as a neighbor of a neighbor.

“The person didn’t have my number, so they had to go through someone else who did,” he said.

When he got to Central Park, the father found the son in need of medical attention.

“There were two girls with him and they were taking care of him at that point,” he said.

First responders then began arriving at the same location, he said, including sheriff’s deputies and paramedics. He was then taken to the hospital.

As he recovers at home, his parents remain worried about his recovery. What are they going to do? “We’re up in the air, right now,” the boy’s father said.

“I want to let people know that they have the ability to stop these things,” he said.

“If they do, then perhaps the (victims) won’t get hurt as badly as my son,” he said. “He had a concussion, and it’s going to take time to heal.”