By Liz Beavers
lbeavers@newstribune.info
managing editor
KEYSER — “We just wanted to go out on the field and celebrate with our team.”
What started out as a good night for Frankfort Falcon fans quickly turned into a nightmare Friday as several Frankfort students and at least one teacher were apparently pepper sprayed in an attempt to keep them from going onto the field to celebrate their first Mineral Bowl win in six years.
Keyser hosted the annual clash with Frankfort at their new Alumni Stadium at Tornado Alley, and the Falcons won the contest 22-13.
According to FHS students Katie Jan and Alex McDonald, a group of about 100 Frankfort fans had gathered at the fence as the end of the game neared.
“We were going to storm the field like they stormed ours last year,” Jan said. “We went down to the fence where there was a gate.”
Jan said “some man from Keyser and two security guards,” however, told them they couldn't go out on the field.
“So everybody stayed put.”
When the end-of-game buzzer sounded, however, Jan said she and her fellow students started yelling and cheering for their team.
“The next thing I knew, we were being washed with pepper spray.”
According to McDonald, the problem started when one Frankfort student began to climb over the fence to get to the field.
“One boy jumped the fence and the security guard pulled something out. I thought it was a tazer, so I jumped back down,” McDonald recalls.
“It was pepper spray and he (the guard) sprayed the boy straight in the face. Me and about four others also got it in the face.”
Jan remembers her group being warned that the guard were going to spray the crowd, but “nobody took it seriously, because, I mean, who was going to spray a bunch of teenagers?”
McDonald said there were “about a hundred fans, including a women with a baby, and a teacher,” behind him who may have also been sprayed in the process.
“One kid had a reaction and went home throwing up,” he said.
McDonald said his throat burned for the rest of the night, but he otherwise did not suffer any side effects from the incident.
Jan said her tongue “really burned.”
“We breathed it in. It was really nasty,” she said. “I know a couple of people who got sick the next day though. One guy was throwing up.”
Jan said one of the Frankfort teachers in the crowd “got it directly in the face.”
According to Keyser High School principal Charles Wimer, game announcer Scott Furey had warned all the fans to stay off the field and the track at the end of the game.
“We do not allow people on the track or the field,” he told the News-Tribune Monday. “They had mud on their feet. Street shoes can damage the track. We were trying to take care of our property.”
Wimer said the Frankfort fans were “very emphatic,” however, and “one said he was coming over and we weren't going to be able to stop him.”
Wimer called the boy “a fairly large student,” and said the security guard — from H Team Security of Petersburg, who was hired by Keyser High School to provide security at the football game — was much smaller.
“Maybe he feared for his safety, I don't know,” Wimer said. “They were all up against the fence.”
Wimer said the first kid, whom he claims was the only one who was directly pepper sprayed by the guard, “landed at the bottom of the fence.”
“Actually, a couple of them ran across; one of them even ran into Mr. Saturday,” he said, referring to assistant principal Michael Saturday, who was lined up at the fence, along with Wimer and assistant principal Patricia Twigg, to try to keep order.
According to McDonald, however, it was Wimer who told the guard to use the spray.
“Mr. Wimer and one of our teachers who was there kind of got into it and were yelling,” he said. “She said we just wanted to go out and celebrate with our classmates and he said, 'I don't care what you want, it's our field.'”
Admitting that the new facility is “a beautiful field,” McDonald added, “We weren't going to tear it up.”
He credits KHS assistant principal Twigg with helping to calm the situation.
“She told them to back off with the pepper spray,” he said.
Superintendent Skip Hackworth, who had already presented the Mineral Bowl trophy to Frankfort's players and exited the stadium, said he received word of the incident when Wimer called him by cell phone.
Monday, he expressed his dismay at the situation.
“It was a wonderful football game between two of the finest student bodies in the state. It's just unfortunate when anything such as this happens to spoil a good time for our students.”
Hackworth, who said nothing of the incident during the board of education meeting Monday night, told the News-Tribune after the meeting that he is conducting an investigation of the incident and will report his findings to the board at a future meeting.
“I talked with both principals today, and I've talked to several parents. I will be talking with members of the security company and any others who could provide information,” he said.
Hackworth did say earlier in the day however, that from what he had been told, the guard from H Team Security “told them to stop and when they didn't stop, that's when he used the spray.”
Hackworth also told the News Tribune that, in his personal opinion, “the fields are for the participating teams. The fans do not belong out there on the courts or the fields.”
He added, however, that he “had not given any direction to either Keyser or Frankfort” to that effect.
The person who answered the phone at H Team Security in Petersburg referred all questions to the KHS principal.
Pam Jan, Katie's mother, expressed her concern about what might happen at the Mineral Bowl next year if something isn't done now to help calm the tempers inflamed by Friday's incident.
“This was a very immature act by some people. If it's pepper spray this year, what's next? Guns?”
“It's very important that the proper stand be taken now,” she said.
Jan's call for action may be even more pressing if Keyser and Frankfort wind up facing off again this year in the playoffs.
Keyser, W.Va. —
