Months before dozens of police cars raced to a St. George school for troubled youths, one of its teachers had emailed managers with a warning: The staff was losing control, and something bad would happen if things weren’t fixed.
Red Rock Canyon School didn’t have enough staff to calm disputes and teachers were quitting. Brawls among students were becoming more frequent, more than Dane Camp had ever seen during his five years working there.
Then, one April evening, dozens of students began fighting, first with one another and then with staffers. Fifty police officers responded — some outfitted with SWAT vests and AR-15s — to find students breaking glass, pulling down blinds and throwing punches.