OK, asking for my opinion about the gang issue is pretty much like opening Pandora's box; you never know what you might get. Here goes.

I'm an aide in the 10th grade office of Attleboro High School. To think that we, yes, Attleboro High, could possibly have one gang, let alone several, is absurd. But it's the truth. Why do we have gangs? Well, your guess is as good as mine.

Being an office aide, you hear and see a lot of the fights that happen in the school. One of the fights occurred recently. Gang related? Surely you're kidding me.

The definition of "gang" is "a group of youngsters or adolescents who associate closely, often exclusively, for social reasons, especially such a group engaging in delinquent behavior," states dictionary.com.

The fight was between a freshman and a sophomore and was broken up by teachers and students. When you're a freshman, you're either 14 or 15 years old. As a sophomore, you're between 15 and 16 years old, typically. Why are you in a gang or even thinking about being in a gang at that age? There's no need for it. I'll admit that there is a difference between hanging out with a group of friends and calling them your "gang," and hanging out with friends to do drugs or engage in delinquent activities.

Unless you were actually at the fight, it's not fair to say that anything was "gang-related." The fight was between two people, although it did look like more were involved. Honestly, though, if you see a fight break out, wouldn't you sit there and watch? That's exactly what a lot of teens were doing. They weren't involved.

Fights are nothing new to any of the staff or students in the school. You may not see one, but you hear about it through the grapevine.

In one of my classes, we've talked about gangs in Attleboro and how they are not nearly as tough as the gangs in Boston or the Bronx.

I'm sorry, but when I heard this was supposedly "gang-related," I laughed. All of the media reports I saw about the incident had blown things completely out of proportion. I feel things could have been handled by the media better and that they shouldn't have made things sound like they were gang related, thereby getting the television stations involved.