Students’ March Turns Into Fights, Vandalism : Demonstration: About 2,000 from two South Bay high schools were protesting alleged racism in the resignation of a black principal.

A demonstration Monday morning by about 2,000 students from two South Bay area high schools protesting alleged racism turned violent as demonstrators began fighting and vandalizing property, police said.

Five students were detained for questioning and at least two people sustained minor injuries in “scattered fights” that erupted after students from Leuzinger High School converged on the Hawthorne High School campus to protest the resignation of that school’s black principal, Ken Crowe, police and school officials said.

In an interview Monday, Crowe said that he announced his plans to step down on Feb. 28 because the Centinela Valley Union High School District Board of Trustees had informed him he would be reassigned to another, unnamed position at the end of the year. He has also accused the board of failing to support his attempts to rid Hawthorne High of racial harassment.

Although board members have said they support Crowe’s efforts, students believe he was being forced out by racism.

“We went there peacefully to try to stop the racism,” said Monica Fritsch, a 16-year-old Leuzinger student. “Then the gangs started fighting. . . .

“We know the schools are cross-town rivals, but we were trying to forget about that.”

Chanting “fight the powers” and “hell, no, we won’t go,” several hundred students from Leuzinger in Lawndale streamed out of classes at about 10 a.m. and began marching to the Hawthorne campus, more than a mile away, where they joined with many students who left their classes.

Not long after the demonstration began, a passer-by was shot and slightly wounded in the head with a pellet gun, and an unidentified Leuzinger student suffered a minor hand injury during a melee, Hawthorne Police Lt. Herb Mundon said.

The passer-by, Silvio Serrapica, 39, was hospitalized in good condition. The student was treated and released from the hospital.

Police said gang fights also broke out during the protest, which they said involved as many as 2,000 youths.

Hawthorne Police Sgt. Brad Bristow said the two schools are rivals with a long history of gang tension.

“We’ve had gang problems at those two schools for years,” Bristow said. “When Leuzinger and Hawthorne play football, we always send an extra force in there.”

Despite what police said, most students and school officials maintained that gang rivalry was unrelated to the demonstration.

“This has nothing to do with gangs,” said Leuzinger Principal Sonja Davis. “Considering the number of kids we were dealing with, they were really well-behaved.”

One merchant along the march route complained that students had vandalized his shop.

Ted Shin, owner of a convenience store at Hawthorne Boulevard and 137th Street, said more than 100 teen-agers stormed his store and plundered shelves.

“I said, ‘What’s going on?’ ” Shin said. “But they just scattered. I didn’t know what to do. They started grabbing things; knocking down displays.”

The protesters were met at the Hawthorne campus on El Segundo Boulevard by about 100 officers from Hawthorne and several nearby law enforcement jurisdictions.

Officers, who set up roadblocks around the campus, herded most of the protesters to the school’s football field and bleachers.

The demonstration ended at about noon when administrators and police officers persuaded students to go back to class.

But even as the Leuzinger students began boarding buses brought in to take them back to school, police said, some Hawthorne students began throwing rocks at the vehicles.

One of the detained five students was booked for investigation of felony charges after he allegedly hurled a grapefruit-size chunk of concrete at a bus, police said. The others were released to parents.

Most students were back in class by 1:30 p.m. and resumed a regular schedule until the school day ended at 2:30 p.m., officials said.

Students said the march was the result of nearly a week of planning. After Crowe’s resignation, Hawthorne students began circulating flyers announcing a demonstration.

However, many Leuzinger students said they did not find out about the protest until early Monday morning.

“The security guards told us that we should walk out of class because (the school administration) just wanted Leuzinger to be all white,” Monica Fritsch said.

She said security guards told students that the district was planning to fire all minority personnel.

According to police, students had planned two demonstrations, one at Leuzinger on Monday and another at Hawthorne for today.

Davis said Leuzinger will hold assemblies this morning to give the students a chance to air their grievances.

Crowe, who has been Hawthorne principal since February, 1988, said he does not want to leave the school and believes the move to reassign him is a “political payoff” for a white teacher who assisted in the election of three new trustees in November.

Board members declined to comment Monday on Crowe’s position in the district.

One of the new board members, Pam Sturgeon, said she was upset about Monday’s demonstration and would meet with fellow board members to decide what action they might take to cool tensions.

Sturgeon said that she and another new board member, Jacqueline Carrera, have received threatening phone calls. She said someone called Carrera’s mother and asked, ‘ “How would you like to see your daughter in a wheelchair?’ ”

In recent months, the district, which has about 6,000 students, has had a spate of race-related incidents, which some administrators attribute to a handful of white teachers who, they say, are having difficulty working with minority administrators.

Times staff writers Andrea Ford, Shawn Hubler, Marc Lacey, George Hatch and Linda Chong contributed to this story.

The student march was tainted by minor fistfights and a looting incident. Police said gangmembers from the rival schools were involved in brawls and began hurling stones at school buses.In addition, the owner of a Hawthorne convenience store said about 100 teens stormed his store a1852055667