By Liz Fiandaca
The Boston Herald
Copyright 2006 Boston Herald Inc.
Boston emergency workers responded to Thomas A. Edison Middle School in Brighton yesterday morning after pepper spray was discharged, police said, causing an evacuation and the transport of 42 people to area hospitals.
Boston crews, some wearing hazardous-materials suits, were initially confronted with a suspicious, unidentified odor that caused complaints of respiratory distress, nausea and dizziness, according to Public Information Officer Lt. Christopher Stratton, who was on the scene.
Stratton said patients were given fresh air or oxygen before being hospitalized as a precaution.
Officers on the scene observed a school administrator talking with a juvenile student, whom witnesses accused of releasing pepper spray in the school. A pepper spray canister was recovered in bushes on Tremont Street and was collected as evidence, according to Boston police Officer John Boyle.
A 15-year-old from East Boston was placed under arrest and charged with delinquency for the unlawful possession of pepper spray as well as disturbing a school assembly and disturbing the peace, police said. He will be arraigned in Boston Juvenile Court.