Two Teachers Arrested After Students' Brawl

Two teachers and six students were arrested after police were called in to break up a bathroom brawl in a Bronx high school late yesterday morning, police said.

Six female teenagers were involved in a schoolhouse spat that quickly became a full-on fight in a first-floor bathroom of the New School for Arts and Sciences at Hunts Point, police said. Officials said they were unsure what had sparked the fight, but police said officers, called in to quell the altercation, were confronted by the two teachers. They sought to prevent the officers from arresting students. After officers gave them a spoken warning, all eight were arrested and handed court summonses for disorderly conduct, according to police.

The president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, expressed dismay at the arrests.

"Something is very, very wrong when teachers try to stop a fight and get arrested instead," she said yesterday. "It sounds like an apology, not a criminal charge, is in order for the teachers."

The school, an alternative high school founded in 1994 and located in an old building at 965 Longwood Ave. that it shares with an elementary school, had four school-safety officers on the premises. Nevertheless, one of the teachers who was arrested, Cara Wolfson, called 911 for assistance, police said. The fight was still going on when officers arrived, and one student, Jacquelyn Merced, was pulled from the fray and taken to Lincoln Hospital for minor bumps and scratches to her forehead, according to police.

After the injured girl was removed, the officers tried to step into the bathroom to arrest the other five but were stopped by Ms. Wolfson and another teacher, Quinn Kronen, police said. The teachers tried to block the entrance to the bathroom, police said. A sergeant warned Ms. Wolfson and Mr. Kronen to step aside, and when they refused, the two were placed under arrest, police said.

Suspensions are pending for students Julisa Sierra, 18; Taisha Rivera, 17; Stacey Hilgate, 19; Brittany Brown, 17; Treazure Hodge, 17, and Ms. Merced, 16, according to a spokesman for the city's Department of Education, Keith Kalb. He said the ramifications of the incident for Ms. Wolfson, 25, and Mr. Kronen, 38, remained unclear. The incident was under investigation, Mr. Kalb said.

Neither Mr. Kronen nor Ms. Wolfson could be reached for comment yesterday.

The teachers' arrests come at a time when relations between the police and schools are already strained. Last month, at Bronx Guild High School at the Soundview section of the borough, a police officer who was in the process of arresting a 16-year-old student inside a classroom was allegedly assaulted by the principal, Michael Soguero, and a school-safety officer, James Burgos. Mr. Soguero and Mr. Burgos said the officer was interfering with the conduct of their jobs as educators and had overstepped his authority. Mr. Burgos and Mr. Soguero spent a day in jail and were removed from their positions at the school after being charged with assault and obstructing governmental administration. Police have stood by the officer's actions.

Following that incident, the New York Civil Liberties Union called on the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, and the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, to review the written guidelines governing police activity in schools.