Principal: There is no 'Fight Club' at MHS

Merrimack High School Principal Ken Johnson said Tuesday morning rumors of a purported fight club in the freshman class are 100 percent false and he is “appalled” that parents would be perpetuating that kind of information around town without calling the school to confirm it.

Johnson was responding to questions after Merrimack Patch was contacted by a couple of local parents who were concerned about reports of fights among Merrimack's youngest high school students being video taped while large groups of students watched, and later uploaded to YouTube and/or Facebook.

What is true, Johnson said, is that two fights between four boys occurred on the Merrimack High School softball field on Tuesday, Sept. 25, sometime after 4 p.m. He said the fights were recorded to be uploaded to social media sites and there were students there watching who said and did nothing.

“This is what I told the student body last week, 'Whereas in other schools or other places this may occur, it will not be tolerated here and punitive measures will be taken,'” Johnson said.

Johnson said both fights broke out within a couple of minutes and, from the information he has gathered, began over a comment one teen made about another's sibling. He said the students who were fighting were aware the fights were being videotaped.

But he added that the rumor that fights like this have been happening since the students were in eighth grade was untrue.

“An act of violence at Merrimack High School is especially rare,” Johnson said.

Punitive action has been taken against the four youths involved in the fight, Johnson said. And students who shot the video and students who were filmed watching the fight have been addressed, he added.

He said last week's fights were addressed “immediately and decisively” and it has been made abundantly clear to the students that the kind of behavior that occurred last week will not be tolerated and “students who engage in such a pathetic, dangerous, foolish fashion will be punished accordingly.”

Punishments will begin with 10 days of school suspension and cases will be forwarded to the SAU 26 Superintendent's Office as well as the Merrimack Police Department, Johnson said.

He did not elaborate on the punishments handed out last week, saying only that these students were very young and the situation “has been dealt with.” He said safety of the students in the school is the number one concern.

In addition to being upset that such behavior would occur among the students at his high school, Johnson was angry at the fact that adults would spread a rumor to one another that fights of this nature have been a regular occurrence without being in touch with the school to address it first.

“They should be ashamed of themselves for that kind of pathetic behavior and for putting the school in that kind of light,” Johnson said.