Donald Gobbi will never forget the fight last September in a Meade High School hallway, or the kicks to the head he suffered when he tried to break up the brawl.
Mr. Gobbi, the librarian at the school since it opened in 1977, now suffers a palsy that makes his hands shake. It's hard for him to bring a coffee cup or a fork to his lips. He also walks with a cane.
The injuries occurred Sept. 30 when he tried to stop a racially charged fight at the school. He was knocked to the ground, kicked in the head, back and legs. Paramedics took him to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.
Yesterday, Mr. Gobbi testified before Judge Eugene M. Lerner in the juvenile court trials for four of the seven students charged with assault with intent to maim. Judge Lerner opened the trial to the press.
Also yesterday, a fifth student pleaded delinquent -- the equivalent of a guilty plea -- to disturbing school activities. He is scheduled to be sentenced March 2. Trials for the other students are pending.
According to yesterday's testimony, the fight started in a second-floor hallway after a group of black youths approached a white student. One of the group's leaders pounded his fist into his palm and said to the white youth, "Why are you messing with my boys?" There had been an earlier confrontation.
A group of teachers moved in to break up the heated argument that followed, according to one student's testimony.
"The blacks started going back to class, but then one white person hit this black boy, then they all started fighting," said one 14-year-old student.
Mr. Gobbi, who used a cane to walk to the witness stand, testified that he was in a nearby classroom when he heard students yelling "fight." He stepped into a crowd of students and tried to break up the fight. He fell to the ground after being hit in back of his right knee.
"I seen Mr. Gobbi getting hit and stomped," the student testified.
Mr. Gobbi said that "when I hit the ground, I thought, 'I have to pTC get up, I have to get up.' But I said, 'I can't get up' 'cause I was being kicked."
"I remember being kicked repeatedly in the head," he testified.
Mr. Gobbi said he was knocked out when his head hit the linoleum floor and that he was kicked several times as he tried to crawl to a corner wall for protection.
"I remember somebody stomped me on my right arm," he said.
He said he passed out. When he regained consciousness, he was being treated by paramedics and was on his way by state police helicopter to the trauma center.
"I couldn't move my hands, and I couldn't move my legs. I thought my back was broken," he said.
School officials suspended 17 students after the incident.