Five female Peoria High School students have been arrested or face school discipline, following a fight that resulted in one student getting tased.
The scuffle that occurred Monday was widely circulated on social media.
One video shows the student on the ground in a brawl with two other female students. After breaking away from the fight, she ran to a backpack, pulled out a knife and stood on a cafeteria table waving it and shouting at the other students. That’s when a Peoria Police officer tased the girl.
Peoria Public Schools spokesperson Chris Copelan says district employees and the officer responded appropriately.
“Unfortunately there was a group of students that were involved in a short altercation that the officers dispersed that immediately," Copelan said. "The officer did what he needed to do to keep the rest of the students in that area safe.”
Copelan says they’ve ruled out that previous instances of bullying were behind the incident.
“In fact everything in the investigation that we have so far has led us to believe that the young lady that was tased was the aggressor in the situation,” Copelan said.
The father of the student who got tased alleges that his daughter was previously the victim of bullying.
Copelan says the district concluded the dispute was triggered by an event that happened over the weekend. He says the district's Office of Social Emotional Learning is reaching out to students at Peoria High School.
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