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By Jason A. Kahl
Reading Eagle
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An 18-year-old man was hit in the head with a brick after several fights erupted near Reading’s new Citadel intermediate high school shortly after students were dismissed Thursday afternoon, police said. The victim suffered a cut to the side of his head and was taken to Reading Hospital, city police said. They did not release his name, so information on his condition could not be obtained. The suspect, a 15-year-old city boy whose name police did not release because he is a juvenile, was committed to the Berks County Youth Center in Bern Township on aggravated assault and related charges. Police were in the area watching students leave the school at the site of the former St. Joseph Medical Center at 12th and Walnut streets when several fights erupted. Police said the main fight was near 10th and Walnut. Several other fights broke out in the area about the same time. According to investigators: Officers got a description of the boy with the brick and spotted him in the 800 block of Buttonwood Street. They chased him several blocks through yards, alleys and breezeways. They took him into custody in a yard in the 1000 block of Walnut Street. At least one other person may have been injured in the main fight, but police did not have any other details. The fights happened just two days after the $80 million school opened for classes. The school has 300 rooms and was designed to serve 3,000 ninth- and 10th-graders. It was also intended to help alleviate overcrowding at Reading High School a few blocks away. Police said they do not know if the boy who was arrested or the others in the fight are students at the new school. Police said the only other problem they’ve encountered since the school opened is with traffic on 12th Street near the old emergency room entrance to the hospital, which went from a one-way to a two-way street. |
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