Student nabbed in alleged food-fight plot

The Arizona Republic
May. 21, 2006

A student at Mountain Ridge High School was arrested Friday by Glendale police for allegedly plotting to stage a food fight in the school cafeteria.

The boy, a 17-year-old junior, was taken into custody at the Glendale school then placed in a juvenile detention center on a charge of disrupting an educational facility, police said.

Jeff Payne, the student's father, said the food fight never happened, so he can't understand why his son was arrested.

"Shame on him for planning a food fight," Payne said. "But there was no food fight and he's in jail right now."

School officials have taken further action by slapping the student with a suspension, said Sandi Hicks, a spokeswoman for the Deer Valley Unified School District.

The food fight, which had been planned on an Internet Web site, was supposed to occur Thursday, but school officials got wind of the plot, Hicks said.

Extra teachers and security were posted in the school cafeteria and nothing happened, Hicks said. Officials were back on guard Friday and again foiled a possible outbreak of tossed food, she said.

Officer Mike Peña, a Glendale police spokesman, said the student was confronted with Web postings in which investigators believe he planned the food fight.

School administrators were specifically singled out as food-fight targets, Peña said. The boy was taken into custody after he became very uncooperative, he said.