Wayne Students' Fight Video Makes Rounds on Web

By Gan Matthews, NEWS 9

WAYNE, Oklahoma -- The city of Wayne and the Wayne School system received a little international publicity this week, but it wasn't the kind they wanted.

Tuesday morning, before classes started, two teenage girls got into a fight outside the Wayne public schools. Fights happen at schools all the time, but what set this fight apart was that another student filmed it on a cell phone.

The mother of one of the girls said her daughter was not the aggressor.

"She had a large red knot on her cheek and had a bruise on her forehead and was bruised up above her ear," said Shelly Scott, mother of student involved in the fight.

But what Scott said really made her mad was that the student with the phone posted the video on YouTube for all the world to see.

"I had a friend in Anchorage, Alaska that even seen this video. I am very disgusted with the way it was handled. My child's been exploited all over the U.S. on national, you know, the Internet," Scott said.

Wayne Police Chief Ron Reagan said the video will help their investigation.

"It's very explicit about what happened. So it's going to be powerful," Reagan said.

School officials said Wayne has good students and fights are rare, but now they fear the video has created the opposite impression.

"To have it videoed and then put on YouTube that can be seen across the world, sure, that's very disheartening," said Zack Powell, Wayne School Superintendent.

Superintendent Powell said the student who posted the fight video on YouTube came in Wednesday and voluntarily removed it. Now everyone in Wayne is hoping the school's 15 minutes of fame on the web are over.

Any criminal charges resulting from the fight will be handled in the juvenile courts.

The school district has already taken disciplinary action against those involved in the fight, and is considering action against the other student for violating the district's cell phone policy.