Albuquerque Police Monitor Racial Tensions at Highland High

Police say they were called Friday to help calm things down among Hispanic and African American students at Highland High School.

Rumors about outsiders coming to the school to fan the flames have APD stationing gang officers on campus next week.

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One student describes what he saw at school Friday.

“Everybody is lined up to go to war basically . . . It’s just a lot of fear because people are scared for their lives . . . people are crying and running and basically scared to death. I know I was,” the student said.

Albuquerque Public Schools said a fight between two boys on Wednesday caused two different groups to become at odds with each other.

This student said it boils down to a racial conflict.

“All the black people want to fight the Mexicans and all the Mexicans want to fight the black people–it’s as simple as that, that’s as simple as you can put it,” she said.

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“The students have almost segregated a little bit into their different racial groups–today there was word that there was going to be a large racial fight,” said APD Sgt. Patrick Ficke.

Because of police presence on Friday, that fight never happened.

Two different Highland parents claim they’ve been going to administrators trying to get this problem addressed long before it escalated.

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“They need to make this stop–they really do. It’s about education not about war and that’s what all these kids feel like–that they have to fight a war,” added another parent who wants to remain anonymous.

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