MS-13 gang members have created chaos at a Maryland middle school just ten miles from the White House. The Washington Post reports that a handful of gang members at Wirt Middle School in Riverdale, Md. have been threatening students and teachers, selling drugs, are starting fights. Meanwhile, police and administrators seem to be looking the other way:

Gang-related fights are now a near-daily occurrence at Wirt, where a small group of suspected MS-13 members at the overwhelmingly Hispanic school throw gang signs, sell drugs, draw gang graffiti and aggressively recruit students recently arrived from Central America, according to more than two dozen teachers, parents and students. Most of those interviewed asked not to be identified for fear of losing their jobs or being targeted by MS-13.

Although administrators deny Wirt has a gang problem, the situation inside the aging, overcrowded building has left some teachers so afraid that they refuse to be alone with their students. Many said they had repeatedly reported incidents involving suspected gang members to administrators, only to be ignored — claims supported by documents obtained by The Washington Post.

“Teachers feel threatened but aren’t backed up. Students feel threatened but aren’t protected,” one educator said. “The school is a ticking time bomb.”…

One educator was stunned when, at the beginning of the school year, a handful of students continually shouted obscenities and threw objects around the classroom. The educator soon noticed the same students scrawling “MS-13” on papers, desks and their skin. They bullied Spanish-speaking classmates and sexually harassed the girls in class. Several students openly counted cash, allegedly money earned from selling marijuana in Wirt’s bathrooms, transactions that a student and several parents also described to The Post.

But administrators brushed aside complaints, the educator said, and the behavior spread to other students.

One 14-year-old girl claims she was raped by a gang member. She reported the incident to police but then changed her mind and recanted, apparently fearful that the gang would harm her. Despite that, she claims was later threatened by a gang member with a gun.

Thirty-two students have been suspended this year for fighting and police have been called to the school 74 times as of May 1st. That may sound like a serious reaction from authorities but one teacher tells the Post the actual number of fights are now up to 2-3 per day. The suspensions and police intervention are barely making a dent in the violence.

All of this is reportedly happening because of a handful of kids, maybe a little over a dozen have joined the gang. It’s part of a resurgence that is happening in cities around the country where unaccompanied minors who came to the border have been resettled. The Post reports up to 5,000 minors have been settled in Maryland near this middle school. Most of those kids are involved in gangs, but chaos created by the handful who are is so bad that other students at the school have formed a kind of counter-gang to oppose MS-13. I don’t condone kids fighting, but if the administrators are going to look the other way it’s inevitable that kids are going to band together to protect themselves.

We’re basically seeing a prison movie play out in a suburban middle school. It’s a wonder no one at this school has been killed yet, but that could happen if authorities don’t step up and protect their students from this ruthless gang.