A local high school student from Walt Whitman was arrested earlier in September after he assaulted a fellow student with a frying pan.
Prince Cutchember, 19, was charged with first-degree assault after he attacked his fellow classmate. The student’s injuries were treated by the school’s nurse and was later released to his parents.
“It was a terrible accident and it was surprising because no one would expect somebody to hit them with a frying pan,” freshman George Grigoriadis said.
Students reported that, while the fight was going on, someone pulled the fire alarm which resulted in the evacuation of all students from the building.
Gboyinde Onijala, a spokeswoman for Montgomery County Public Schools, said that the two incidents were unrelated, according to a source from FOX News.
As the word of the incident spread to WJ students, rumors were told among students about coming to the Whitman game on Friday with frying pans as a joke.
WJ principal, Jennifer Baker, released an announcement to students, regarding the intentions of bringing frying pans.
“Some of the students from the leadership class were reporting that kids were saying things online that they were going to bring pictures of frying pans to the game which would be mocking Whitman students after they just had a really serious incident where someone got injured, and I didn’t think that was appropriate. I wanted students to understand they were supposed to behave well in someone else’s stadium,” Baker said.
Students took the whole thing lightheartedly and made jokes about the “Pan Man” and saying things like “Free Pan Man, he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I watched the guy with the frying pan hit the other guy and it was the craziest thing. How much anger do you have to contain to whip out a frying pan and hit someone? I personally have never used a frying pan to hit someone before,” sophomore Tomi Ogunnusi said.
A student who witnessed the incident said, “Then out of nowhere I just see [the suspect] comes up, and I didn’t think anything was going to happen, but I see him come up with the pan and start banging [the victim] on his head with it.”
According to Fox 5,“ the [victim] was like, ‘What did I do to you, please stop’, and [the suspect] was punching him to the floor.”
