He walked slowly to the front of the auditorium, amid a clamor of questions being yelled out. Upon reaching a lectern in the front, he held up the palms of both hands, until there was quiet.
“My name is Dan Tabas and I’m the principal here at East. I don’t think I know much more than you do at this point, but here’s what I do know. Three girls were on their way to school this morning and, about a half-block away, they were jumped by a group of people. By the way, I use the word people, instead of students, because right now I don’t know how many of the combatants were students at our school. “Once that happened, others rushed to their defense and then the number of fighters continued to get larger and larger. I understand that ten or twelve people were taken to the hospital by the police and EMT units. As far as I know, none of the injuries is life- threatening. By the way, I’d like to thank the Philadelphia Police Department and our security staff for their very quick and restrained response. I’ll now take questions.”
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