From the ugliness at S. Phila. High, a hero emerges
When Violet Sutton-Lawson saw what was happening in the South Philadelphia High hallway - an Asian student sprawled on the floor, being beaten by a mob - she didn't stop to think. She reacted.
Sutton-Lawson put her hands together like a swimmer on a platform, then dived into the crowd, her momentum propelling her through the mass of bodies and onto the boy on the ground.
She wrapped her arms around him, then glared up at the eight to 10 attackers.
"Get away! Get out!" she shouted. "Ain't none of you going to touch him!"
Sutton-Lawson, 58, looked so fierce that the assailants paused, taken aback.
In that moment, school police and staff arrived, pulling away the attackers and ending the assault. Sutton-Lawson helped the boy search for his glasses, which had been knocked off in the fray.
It was 12:31 p.m. Dec. 3.
Amid a day of terrible violence, Sutton-Lawson insisted on peace.
Two minutes after protecting the boy on the hallway floor, she again risked serious injury by using her body to shield a small group of Asian students from a larger crowd of African American assailants in the lunchroom.
"I can't worry about me when I see some children being torn apart," she said in an interview at her home. "I went right to the problem."
People who know her weren't surprised.
"That's Violet," said Joseph Ritvalsky, the retired
Sutton-Lawson put her hands together like a swimmer on a platform, then dived into the crowd, her momentum propelling her through the mass of bodies and onto the boy on the ground.
She wrapped her arms around him, then glared up at the eight to 10 attackers.
"Get away! Get out!" she shouted. "Ain't none of you going to touch him!"
Sutton-Lawson, 58, looked so fierce that the assailants paused, taken aback.
In that moment, school police and staff arrived, pulling away the attackers and ending the assault. Sutton-Lawson helped the boy search for his glasses, which had been knocked off in the fray.
It was 12:31 p.m. Dec. 3.
Amid a day of terrible violence, Sutton-Lawson insisted on peace.
Two minutes after protecting the boy on the hallway floor, she again risked serious injury by using her body to shield a small group of Asian students from a larger crowd of African American assailants in the lunchroom.
"I can't worry about me when I see some children being torn apart," she said in an interview at her home. "I went right to the problem."
People who know her weren't surprised.
"That's Violet," said Joseph Ritvalsky, the retired
