HOUSTON – When a fight breaks out at school these days, it's almost always caught on camera. We've certainly seen our fair share on our local campuses.
One recent brawl outside Taylor High School last week went viral within minutes. The result was one student hurt and another charged by police.
It's just one in the litany of violent brawls at or near Houston area schools in recent weeks that have wound up on the web, along with others from around the country featured on a variety of websites and social media.
"I see those a lot. Probably once, like every two weeks are so there's a fight," student Faris Elmachgouv. "By lunch at least the entire school will know or have seen it."
Dr. Harvey Rosenstock said the videos teach violence and create a culture of violence.
"They are like training films. And they do not show there is terrible consequences for that kind of behavior, either in terms of breaking law and consequence for that and in terms of what you are doing to another individual," Rosenstock said.
Teachers and police believe posting them has created a sort of competition among kids to produce them.
"We see so much more of it cause of the ease of getting these done. Everybody is carrying a phone," Zeph Capo, with the Houston Federation of Teachers, said.
He taught middle school for years before becoming head of the Houston Federation of Teachers. He said most local districts deal with videoed violence using anti-gang policies, but need to increase counseling and induce peer pressure to stop it.
"It's a dangerous subculture and needs to be addressed in a more aggressive manner than has been," Capo said.
Rosenstock describes a similar approach. Education plus modeling, to de-glorify fights.
"We cannot applaud that kind of behavior because it is infectious to societal standards and we have to teach our people there's a better way," he said.