400 STUDENTS JOIN MELEE AT GRANT HIGH.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Staff Writer

A melee between about 400 Armenian and Latino students erupted at Ulysses S. Grant High School on Thursday, injuring 14 students and two teachers in a frenzy of fistfights and thrown trash cans, officials said.

Administrators said the fight grew out of a long-simmering ethnic feud on the Oxnard Avenue campus adjacent to Los Angeles Valley College.

``It was the result of ethnic tensions between Armenian and Latino students at the school,'' said Los Angeles Unified School District spokesman Ed Pardo.

One person appeared to have suffered a broken nose, but the other injuries were minor, officials said.

Los Angeles police in riot gear arrested two students: a girl on suspicion of possession of a knife and a boy for suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, authorities said.

About 30 other students were detained for questioning and released to their parents, officials said.

``It took 30 to 40 minutes to restore order to the school,'' said Los Angeles police Lt. Willie Guerrero of the Van Nuys Division. ``When the officers arrived they saw 50 students fully involved in a big fight in the quad area.''

Hundreds of other students ran over to watch the fight about 12:30 p.m. Many joined in the fray as others scrambled for safety and dodged thrown objects.

``It was pretty much chaos,'' said junior Juan Carrillo, 16. ``People were running toward the fight, and a second later they were running away so you didn't know if they were hurt or shot. The cops had to come before people would come back to class.''

The campus's 3,500 students were kept in their classrooms until shortly after 3 p.m. when they were ushered off campus.

Similar fights have happened at least once a year for more than a decade, although not on this scale, said the school's dean, Daniel Gruenberg.

``It was just about the worst I've seen in terms of numbers,'' Gruenberg said.

Several students said the fight stemmed from a dispute between two individuals, one Latino and one Armenian, but quickly drew in hundreds of others on the racially polarized campus.

Armenians and Latinos tend to hang out at different parts of the campus, separated by what students and administrators call an ``invisible line,'' Gruenberg said.

Students who witnessed the fight said a group of 20 or so Latinos crossed the line and were immediately attacked by a much larger group of Armenians.

Other students soon joined the fray, tossing plastic bottles, shoes and metal trash cans, one of which hit a school security aide in the arm as he tried to break up the fight.

``Half of those people who were throwing things didn't know why they were doing it,'' said 11th-grader Anita Wason, 16. ``It basically turned into some kind of entertainment.''

Principal Joseph Walker said he is searching for ways to bring the faculty, staff and students together to end the recurring violence.

``We have to break this tradition,'' Walker said.

After the fight, Walker met with faculty and staff and asked them to take an active role in defusing tensions on campus when school resumes today.

Administrators plan to step up security today by boosting the number of on-campus police officers from one to six, as well as adding other guards and increased police patrols around the school.

Several worried parents came early to pick up their kids, having heard about the violence through media reports or the drone of helicopters over the neighborhood school.

Parents questioned whether the school has enough security, given the long-standing ethnic tension.

``This school is a time bomb. I was waiting for this to go off for some time,'' said Francisco Torrero of North Hollywood, whose son is a ninth-grader.

``If you have 3,000 students how can you only have one police officer? This should not have happened,'' Torrero said. ``You can't blame the teachers or the faculty, but the security measures in place are not adequate.''

Anik Khanbekyan of North Hollywood said she sends her 11th-grade son to school every day not knowing if she'll have to rush back to pick him up if violence strikes the campus.

``It's not safe - I knew it,'' she said. ``I've thought about taking him to other schools, but nowhere is safe. Every school has problems.''

Karapet Petrosyan of North Hollywood waited anxiously for 90 minutes to pick up her two sons.

``When you send your kids to school you want them to be safe,'' she said. ``Maybe they could put more security or policemen. This age is a very dangerous age.''

Walker said he was investigating a report of gunfire that turned out to be unfounded when he found out about the group fight.

After the fighting stopped, Walker used the public address system to ask students to return to class. Most did, but a few mingled around until at least 30 Los Angeles police officers, some brandishing shotguns, moved onto campus, Pardo said.

Police later swept though nearby Edwin Park, where the two groups often go to settle their disputes.