'I will fight,' says girl, but denies report

The "Cambodian female" was accused of instigating the S. Phila. High assault.
By Jeff Gammage and Kristen A. Graham

Inquirer Staff Writers

For six weeks, since the release of the official Philadelphia School District report on the Dec. 3 violence, she has been the mystery girl of South Philadelphia High:

The rogue student identified only as "the Cambodian female," singled out as an instigator and assailant who joined predominantly African American youths in a series of assaults on Asians.

At 1:30 p.m. that day, the report said, two to four African American girls accompanied by a "possibly Cambodian" female attacked an Asian girl, then dragged her downstairs by her hair.

In a massive after-school assault on Broad Street two hours later, the Cambodian girl was "the first to attack" and "the most violent," identified by the principal as kicking a Vietnamese girl, the report said.

Who is she? Few know.

School District security chief James Golden said he didn't know who she was. Philadelphia police investigators said they didn't know her. The local Cambodian association has been unable to contact her.

After weeks of searching, however, The Inquirer has identified and interviewed the girl, who is 15. She denied any role in the violence of Dec. 3.

"I didn't do nothing wrong," she insisted. "Why, of all the people that's involved, they pick me out?"

She acknowledged being in a brawl the previous day. And she said no one should doubt her toughness when provoked. "I will fight."

The newspaper is withholding her name because of her age.

The district report, issued Feb. 23, cited the girl 10 times in its findings and twice in footnotes.

Cambodian leaders and Asian advocates question why a lone Cambodian girl is cited again and again among so large a group of assailants - at least 10 to 20 inside the school and 20 to 40 outside, according to the report.

They say it's a district attempt to portray the events of Dec. 3 not as "anti-Asian violence" specific to South Philadelphia High, but as general violence that could have happened anywhere.

"We won't make excuses for her, but I want to know how she's tied to the whole thing," said Rorng Sorn, executive director of the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia. "Why is this Cambodian female student being highlighted multiple times?"

Sorn questioned whether the girl had been mentioned so "she can be the scapegoat, and it can be, 'OK, the attackers also had Asians. Maybe it's not racially motivated.' "

Cecilia Chen, a lawyer with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, agreed.

"The district has made a very strong effort to portray the attacks as multiracial, and the fact that they focus so heavily on a single Cambodian female really speaks to that," she said. "It was only Asian immigrant students who were attacked on Dec. 3."

District officials vigorously denied there was any attempt to use the Cambodian girl as a means to broaden the races of those involved.

"That is absolutely not true," spokeswoman Evelyn Sample-Oates said. Asian and African American students were identified and suspended, she said.

James T. Giles, a retired federal judge, conducted the district inquiry at the request of School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. The report named no students.

In an interview, Giles said his description of the Cambodian girl's actions had been based solely on the facts. She was deemed the "most violent" on Broad, where about 100 mostly African American youths surrounded 10 Vietnamese students, because she had been seen kicking a girl, he said.

"I can assure you there was no anti-Asian intention in the report I wrote," Giles said. "But people think what they want. There's nothing I can say to dissuade them from the views they have, nor would I attempt to."

The girl's involvement in the after-school attack "counters a proposition that all the attackers on Broad Street were black," he said. "If it's true the composition of the group was other than all black, then, as I said in the report, it requires looking at more complicated sociological issues than just black versus Asian."

The girl is a ninth grader who now attends a disciplinary school. She stands 5-foot-2 and weighs 98 pounds, all legs and long brown hair, and during the interview she wore stylish silver sandals, cutoff blue jeans, and a gray T-shirt. Her fingernails were manicured, the tips painted white.

Standing on the sidewalk near her South Philadelphia home, she slurped a cherry Popsicle. She had no idea the district existed. She said she had a long disciplinary record and had belonged to a street gang. But she said that on Dec. 3, she deliberately walked past the melee on Broad and was later shocked to be told by community liaison Wali Smith that she was being suspended.

"That's crazy," she said. "Mr. Wali Smith said, 'I saw you kick the Asian girl in the face. You ran across the street and kicked her in the face.' I said, 'No.' . . . Who's going to listen to a student? A teacher always wins."

Sample-Oates, the district spokeswoman, said Smith was not the only staffer to identify the girl. One of the victims and other eyewitnesses recognized her, she said.

The girl's mother, who speaks limited English, broke into tears at the mention of her daughter's name. She said the teen, the third-youngest of nine children, was impossible to control.

"I called the police on her last night," she said, sitting on the front steps of her rowhouse. "When I talk to her, she screams at me."

The girl's brother-in-law, Christopher Robinson, defended her as less culpable than others involved in the violence. It's true her gang pummeled new members as an initiation rite, but none carried guns or sold drugs, he said.

"I'm not saying she's an angel," Robinson said, adding that her past made her easy to blame.

The girl nodded.

"My record is real bad. I understand," she said.

Robinson said his sister-in-law, like some Cambodians born and raised here, identified with African American culture and sided with black students in disputes with Asian immigrants.

The district report said gang influences could not be excluded as a cause of some of the violence. Giles told The Inquirer that he had not researched the Cambodian girl's associations, and that his supposition of gang involvement had been based on other information.

Since the report's release, trying to determine the identity of the Cambodian girl has been the buzz among teachers at South Philadelphia High. After Dec. 3, she was suspended and transferred to Transitions South, an alternative school.

The Cambodian girl criticized the school disciplinary process as unjust. Two other Asian students who were punished also have said they were disciplined unfairly. In one case, the district retracted its allegation that one of the two, Hao Luu, was part of a gang.

In the interview, the Cambodian girl said her mother had attended her disciplinary hearing. But neither of them went to the second, formal hearing because the district notification did not arrive until it was over, the girl said.

Sample-Oates said the district had not been told the notice arrived late. The girl never contacted school or district officials to question her new school assignment, she said.

The Dec. 3 violence has spawned three investigations, including by the state Human Relations Commission and the U.S. Justice Department.

Giles' inquiry blamed the Dec. 3 violence on rumors that circulated after a confrontation between Asian and African American youths the previous day. Asian students dispute that, saying assaults against them have gone on unchecked for years.

They and their advocates say the key point is not the race of the attackers, even if one was Cambodian, but the fact that all the victims were Asian.

The Cambodian girl is first mentioned five pages into the 37-page report. Her role apparently started Dec. 2, the report said.

At 1:30 p.m. that day, a group of Asian and African American students had a verbal confrontation on the second floor of the school and were separated by school police. Afterward, at least two rumors emerged about the cause of the confrontation. One was that during third period "a Cambodian female had 'challenged' a group of three Vietnamese students to a fight."

At 3:15 p.m. that day, an after-school altercation occurred between African American and Asian students, including some who had been involved in the second-floor incident.

One of the victims to come forward publicly was Luu, a 17-year-old immigrant from Vietnam. He was beaten so badly that he vomited.

The report said one rumored assailant in that incident, which ended at a Walgreens store, was the Cambodian girl. The rumor was that "the arms of one of the Vietnamese students were held by African American females while the Cambodian female struck him in the head, rendering him unconscious."

The Cambodian girl told The Inquirer she had been involved in that fight, but only to aid a friend. An Asian boy "hit me with a shoe. I hit him back."

The first attack of Dec. 3 occurred at 8:45 a.m., when a group of mostly African American students assaulted an Asian student in Room 424, the report said.

At 10:30 a.m., eight Vietnamese youths went to school police and identified four African American assailants from the Walgreens incident.

"Apparently," the report said, "someone also identified a Cambodian female student as an assailant, as her name appears in the school police incident report."

The violence continued through the day.

The biggest attack occurred on Broad at dismissal, when the Vietnamese students were chased, surrounded, and beaten.

"A Cambodian female recognized by staff at the scene as an SPHS student was the first to attack the students," the report said, "and was reported to have been the most violent."

The victims could not identify their attackers, but "most of them did recognize the role that the Cambodian female played in initiating and participating in the attack," the report said. "The principal and other SPHS staff were close enough to the attack that they were able to clearly identify the Cambodian female."

The girl said the district had warned her that city police would charge her, but that never happened.

"We never had a court date or nothing," she said.