Published: November 04, 2009 11:40 pm      

Security company worker hits student with pepper spray

Hackworth awaits report on football game incident

KEYSER, W.Va. — Mineral County’s superintendent of schools is waiting for a report from a security company whose employee used pepper spray on a Frankfort High School student after a football game at Keyser High School.

“I’ve received a report from the Keyser principal and I have requested a written report from the security company,” said Mineral County Schools Superintendent Skip Hackworth.

According to Keyser High School Principal Charles Wimer, the student was sprayed Friday after jumping over a fence in an attempt to rush onto the track and field after the game. The student approached a security officer from H-Team Security of Petersburg, which has been employed by Keyser for several years, who sprayed him with Freeze pepper spray. The student then jumped back over the fence.

“Whether the security person did that because he felt he was being threatened or what, I’m not sure,” said Wimer.

Wimer said the student was warned before being sprayed. “I personally talked to the student before he jumped the fence, telling him he couldn’t jump it and get into the field. He asked how I was going to stop him and what I was going to do about it,” said Wimer. “There was a verbal confrontation with this boy trying to talk him out of doing it. It wasn’t a good situation.”

While others noticed and smelled the spray, Wimer said that as far as he knows, only the student who jumped the fence was sprayed.

Wimer said that spectators jumping the fence and rushing onto the track and field may damage the new facilities, which have only been open for around a month. “It’s a latex rubber finish on the track,” said Wimer. “Scuffing shoes and getting mud on the fibers diminishes the life of it.”

H-Team Security declined to comment.

Cory Galliher can be reached at cgalliher@times-news.com.