A brawl involving multiple students erupted Tuesday morning at Citrus Valley High School in Redlands, prompting a police response to the campus at 800 Pioneer Ave. Pepper spray was deployed during the melee, leaving several students and staff members needing on-scene medical treatment before they were released, according to authorities.
Redlands Police Department officers responded Tuesday morning to assist campus security personnel who had initially been handling the disturbance on their own, according to the Redlands Police Department. The department said students were pepper-sprayed and staff suffered minor injuries. As KTLA reports, injured parties were treated and released at the scene, and authorities have not said what led to the fight.
Officials have also not clarified whether anyone was cited or arrested in connection with the Citrus Valley incident, per the same KTLA report. Authorities said they are still investigating the fight, and the report does not identify who deployed the pepper spray.
A Campus Already Under Security Scrutiny
The brawl lands just months after Redlands Unified School District announced plans in April for increased campus-security measures, including single point-of-entry systems, expanded surveillance, higher fencing and weapon-detecting canine units, according to CBS News. Those measures were announced following a March incident in which a Moore Middle School student was found with a gun and bullets.
Citrus Valley High School, which opened in August 2009 as the district's third comprehensive public high school, currently serves roughly 2,110 students in grades 9 through 12, per public school profile data. Redlands High School has safety officers and a Safety Sergeant, according to information published by Redlands High School.
Not the First Time Pepper Spray Has Been Used on Campus
This is not the first time chemical deterrents have been used to break up a fight at Citrus Valley. Back in 2019, a campus security guard deployed pepper spray to break up a student altercation there, leading to medical treatment for several bystanders, according to reporting at the time by the San Bernardino Sun.
California law allows minors aged 16 or older to legally possess tear gas or pepper spray for self-defense under state guidelines cited by the San Dieguito Union High School District, but the circumstances surrounding the spray's use in this incident remain under investigation.
Part of a Wider Pattern Across Southern California Campuses
The Redlands fight comes amid a run of Southern California campus violence. KTLA also reported that a Los Angeles-area high school experienced its own violent incident more than a week before the Citrus Valley brawl, where cellphone video showed a teenage boy pulling a large knife into a crowded school quad. Kaylin Lewis, who witnessed that incident, told KTLA she ran when the knife was pulled out. The Los Angeles School Police Department responded to that scene, and one student was taken into custody in connection with it. KTLA's report focused on the Los Angeles-area incident.
Those incidents echo a more severe case from November 2023, when a brawl involving 11 students at Van Nuys High School in Los Angeles escalated after a knife was drawn, resulting in four hospitalizations and a four-hour campus lockdown, according to a case history cited by KTLA. The cases show that campus altercations can involve weapons and send multiple people for medical care.
How the District Has Handled Discipline in the Past
A 2021 report by the ACLU of Southern California analyzed law-enforcement officers in California schools. The broader issue includes limiting law-enforcement interventions in schools.
For now, authorities have not yet addressed whether the Citrus Valley brawl will result in disciplinary action, citations or changes specific to the campus quad. The outcome remains an open question.
