Another fight breaks out among Albany High students

A second fight in as many days broke out among Albany High School students Wednesday, with Albany Police at one point resorting to pepper spray to control the crowd of teenagers, according to witnesses.

The fight broke out at Central Ave. and Elk St. at around 3:30. One teen has been arrested, Det. James Miller confirmed.

CBS 6 video from the scene shows a large sea of teenagers moving through the area, running sporadically and zipping around on bicycles. Despite initial reports of a massive brawl, Det. Miller told CBS 6 News reporter Michelle Marsh the chaos comprised several smaller fights that broke out every so often.

In an effort to clamp down on those pockets of fighting, Albany police officers resorted to crowd control tactics, holding baseball bats and pepper spray cans as pre-emptive measures, though at one point, an officer was seen pepper-spraying a teenager in an apparently unprovoked move.

Mounted horse police units were also brought in.

A witness who sat on the hood of his car as he observed the scene seemed resigned to the chaos he says has already become commonplace.

"Three days in a row," Cory Landy remarked, perched on the vehicle he said he was trying to protect amid the clashes. "It's been like this, man, since Monday. This is a normal thing."

"I've seen cops hitting kids with batons, they're Mace-ing the kids, the kids are trying to fight the cops," he said. "This is like an everyday thing."

Landy, who works at a city youth boxing program located on the street, predicted the police officers' attempts to control the teens probably wouldn't be effective, though he said he understood how they might justify them. "Kids are crazy these days," he said. "They're wild and out of control."

Asked if teenagers might be looking for "street cred" in these fights, Landy said "it's not worth this. You're going downhill. You ain't going nowhere looking for street cred."