High school fight caught on camera in Riverside, mom says school didn't do enough

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - A video of a fight between two students at a high school in Riverside has gone viral, and one of the families is saying the school district didn't do enough to prevent it.

The video shows two 17-year-olds fighting in a school hallway — one throwing punches to the head, the other ducking and trying to dodge the attack. It hapened around 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 4, at Riverside Polytechnic High School.

Amanda Biggs told FOX 11 that there had been bad blood between her daughter and another student, and that it had escalated in the days prior to the fight. When she found out about the fight, "I showed up and I was enraged."

Biggs said her daughter had minor physical injuries, but suffered emotional scars after the video quickly made the rounds online.

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"Within minutes, the whole school knew. My daughter was emotionally damaged from that and embarrassed publicly among all of her peers, and there was just a whole domino effect after that on our life," Biggs said.

But what angers Biggs most, is that she said she tried to prevent what happened. She got what the school calls a "no contact order."

"They could've notified the teachers of the students who have a ‘no contact order’ in place to look for signs and to have, maybe, campus supervision in the hallways," Biggs said. Despite the order, Biggs said, "[the fight] still happened."

Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback says, "Fighting on campus... anywhere... is against the law."

He also tells FOX 11 that the student-attacker has been disciplined and is no longer on campus. He also says misdemeanor battery charges are expected to be filed against her, but with regard to that "no contact order," Railsback said, "Well, that's a school administrative situation there."

Railsback said schools can try to deal with tensions with things like no contact orders. He said, "They can tell these kids you just need to stay away from each other while you're on campus, or you're going to get yourselves in trouble."

But, to both Railsback and Biggs it's almost like an honor code.

In a statement to FOX 11 Wednesday, the Riverside Unified School District said, in part, "We will continue to work with students and staff in implementing proactive methods and strategies to manage conflict before it becomes physical."

Meanwhile, Biggs is trying to figure out her daughter's immediate future. Biggs says, "We're waiting on a transfer to another school or potentially out of the district."