Post Modern Diversity and its subsequent benefits, sponsored by ‘Little Haiti’
At least 24 students were arrested on charges of rioting, disrupting a school function and resisting arrest with violence, police sources said. Ten officers were treated at the scene for minor injuries. At least a half-dozen students were hurt or suffered respiratory problems.
The brawl, the third outbreak of violence in Miami-Dade schools in three days, underscored Haitian community tensions with police.
At a rally Friday evening, community members questioned the police response. Dozens of angry students, parents and activists packed the area outside Edison’s main entrance. Students who saw the ruckus and activists from the Power U Center for Social Change and the Miami Workers Center shouted out demands of police and school officials.
The brawl and arrests shocked Little Haiti. At a tense meeting later Friday at the Jean-Jacques Dessalines center, Edison parents sought a list of those arrested and the condition of any student sent to the hospital.
Parents and Haitian leaders demanded a full investigation, and school officials promised one.
Construction worker Edwin Alvarez, whose daughter Jeislee, 18, was arrested, was among a group of angry relatives and classmates gathered outside the Miami-Dade Juvenile Assessment Center, 275 NW Second St., while the students were processed.