PHILLIPS COUNTY, Ark. — The Phillips County Sheriff’s Department is investigating what’s been described as a “large” fight that took place Monday night following a basketball game in the town of Lakeview, about 13 miles southwest of Helena-West Helena.
The fight broke out after the basketball game between Marvell and Barton high schools and involved adults and no students. It also may have spilled over to the town of Elaine about eight miles away.
“It’s sad that our adults don’t monitor their behavior so we can be models for our students,” said Henry Anderson, superintendent of the Marvell-Elaine school district.
Anderson said it’s his understanding that the fight broke out at the Lakeview Community Center gym, and involved two women who had some kind of conflict that erupted into a physical confrontation.
He said the two adults were not parents of students in the district.
The Lakeview Police chief said the Phillips County Sheriff’s Office is investigating and arrests are expected.
Neither the Elaine police chief nor the mayor was available to confirm information Tuesday.
But one woman, who told us her name was Tiffany, said a large fight broke out on a playground in Elaine and at least one shot was fired.
“The sheriff department came here. There was like four sheriff department cars and Elaine police and stuff like that,” she said.
The Marvell-Elaine School District is using the Lakeview gym while a new gym is being built in Marvell.
The district’s superintendent says the incident was sad and every measure will be taken to ensure it doesn’t happen in the future.
“We already hire security for our games and will continue to have security present,” Anderson said. “But I’m quite thankful to the Phillips County Sheriff Department because they were there on the spot.”
