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Sydney teens go on school rampage

Five teenage boys armed with baseball bats and a machete invaded a Sydney high school yesterday, smashing classrooms and injuring several students and a teacher, police said.

Merrylands High School in Sydney’s west went into “lockdown” with pupils confined to their classes as the intruders assaulted students and shattered windows before police arrived and arrested them.

Anxious parents of the students gathered outside the school as news of the attack spread, later escorting their children home as they were allowed out.

One father with a 13-year-old boy at the school said he had been given little information about his son’s welfare.

“My heart’s still pumping, I was really worried,” he said.

“Police were called to the high school on Sherwood Road following reports a number of males had entered the school grounds,” a police spokeswoman said.

“They allegedly damaged a number of classrooms [and] a number of students received minor injuries,” she said. “Some were assaulted by the group and others received injuries from the flying glass.”

Police were still trying to establish the motive for the attack in the blue-collar neighborhood, as an education department spokesman said the five boys were not students at the school.

“The information to us is they were coming here ... seeking someone,” Detective Inspector Jim Stewart told Macquarie Radio.

Asked whether the attack could be retribution for something, he said that was possible.

“We’re a bit confounded as to the reasons why,” he said.

One student was admitted to hospital for treatment of a minor facial injury and a teacher was taken to hospital with bruising to the back of the head after trying to restrain one of the attackers, a spokesman for the ambulance service said.

“We’ve assessed 18 school-aged children ... all having minor injuries, some lacerations, some bruising and they’re obviously quite anxious about what has happened,” the spokesman said.

Police said five youths, aged between 14 and 16, entered the school through the main gate at around 9am and stormed an assembly in an outdoor quadrangle.

They then ran through the corridors of two school buildings, smashing windows and showering students with glass.

When police confronted the youths, they dropped their weapons and did not resist arrest.

Stewart said he was stunned by the brazenness of the incident.

“It beggars belief they would attempt this kind of activity against innocent students,” he said.

New South Wales police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said police were continually working with the security branch of the education department to ensure the state’s schools remained safe.

“We have seen over the past year or two an increase in the number of Internet-based alerts, for instance, that we’ve had where people have been contemplating violence,” Scipione said. “It’s always a concern when we see violence in our schools.”
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