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LEARN MOREPosted: 2:10 p.m. EDT Oct 18, 2023
A community is on alert after six masked people reportedly entered a school and attacked students.
The incident happened Monday at Auburn Riverside High School in Washington, according to local station KOMO News. A total of five students were assaulted.
The school district said a student opened a side door and let the group into the school, KOMO News reported. Auburn superintendent Alan Spicciati said the student thought they were being helpful and had no clue what was about to happen.
The school said the masked people ran down the school hallway and hit students at random, according to FOX13 Seattle. Administrators confronted the individuals and they ran.
The assault prompted the school to go into a "secure and teach" lockdown for the rest of the day, FOX13 said. Exterior and interior doors were closed and locked, and students did not move between classes. Auburn Police provided security until 2 p.m.
The school shared details of the incident with parents via email, which was obtained by KOMO.
In the email, Spicciati said all five students were expected to recover, though he did not share the extent of their injuries.
The superintendent believes the incident is linked to back-to-back fights that happened Friday. Spicciati said preliminary findings suggest the fights are connected to "conflicts in the community," which he defined as gang activity.
"That is definitely something that is a concern of ours, and I want to be really transparent. We cannot have gangs in our schools, full stop," said Spicciati.
The school alerted parents of the Friday fights in an email Friday also obtained by KOMO.
The email said the Friday fights began with a first altercation in the morning in which four students were removed from campus. In the afternoon, some of those students returned with some other non-students and a fight broke out in the student parking lot. A BB gun was confiscated.
Police are reviewing video footage as they work to determine the identities of the six students from Monday's incident, KOMO said. They are also considering disciplinary action against the 13 students from the Friday incidents.
An investigation remains ongoing.
