Students sue school district, attackers

Three Murrieta Valley High School students are suing the school district and five students who harassed and beat them last year in a series of race-related fights that started the 2003 school year. The incidents led to the local chapter of the NAACP organizing several community meetings and to the district revising its policy on discrimination. Four white students, Noah Rawls, Garrett Woody, James Dylan Hall and his younger brother, Saege Hall, were arrested at the high school in August and September 2003 after two separate attacks on black students: Sam Farr and Anthony Rouse. Farr, Rouse and a third black student, Pierre Rhodan, filed lawsuits last month in Riverside Superior Court alleging assault and battery and conspiracy on the part of the attackers and negligence and liability on the part of the school district and the parents of the attackers. The lawsuits allege Rhodan was the target of prior threats and harassment by James Hall and other students, which the district did not take adequate action to stop. [more ]