Parents shocked at Centennial High School fight

ROSWELL, Ga. — Parents of students at a north Fulton County high school are shocked by a lunch room brawl between several students that was caught on camera.

The fight happened Thursday at Centennial High School.

With the teen's parents' permission, Channel 2’s Mike Petchenik spoke with the teen who admits to starting the fight, freshman Alex Luna-Pena.

"After I was beating him on the floor and the other guys came in and started in,” Luna-Pena said.

Luna-Pena says it started after another student asked him if he was cool with a Latino gang of which his brother's a member.

When Petchenik asked Luna-Pena if he was in a gang, the teen said no.

The video doesn't show Luna-Pena throw the first punch, but it shows four students pounce on him. At one point they hit him with a baseball cleat.

"I'm pretty shocked,” said parent Ginger Peterson after seeing the video of the fight. “I know they have teachers in the cafeteria when they're eating. It looked like it lasted a pretty long time."

In a letter home to parents, the principal told parents, “Five students made a poor decision by fighting in the cafeteria. Our resource officers and teachers on lunch duty quickly broke it up and the students involved received appropriate disciplinary consequences."

School officials initially told us they believed the fight was over a girl, but they say the investigation is ongoing.

They say school police have charges pending against those involved.

Here is the entire letter sent home to parents:

Dear Centennial Family,

At Centennial we value open and honest communication, so I want to share information about a student fight that occurred yesterday afternoon. The news media may report on this, so I wanted you to hear this information directly from me.

During 4A lunch, five students made a poor decision by fighting in the cafeteria. Our resource officers and teachers on lunch duty quickly broke it up and the students involved received appropriate disciplinary consequences. This kind of situation is not typical for Centennial at all and it was an isolated incident. I want to reiterate that student safety and academics are our top priorities at Centennial High School.

As a precaution that is taken whenever there are student incidents, we have an additional resource officer on campus today and all administrators are highly visible. However, we do not anticipate any additional problems – our school is safe.

We continue to celebrate and be very proud of the many exciting student accomplishments occurring every day on campus (please see my Principal's Desk newsletter coming out later today). We will not let the poor choices made by a few students detract from our successes. Thank you for your support of Centennial High School.

Sincerely,

Ms. Crumbley

WSBTV