A Port Arthur mother wants answers after her daughter was pepper sprayed in the face while a constable was trying to stop a fight between two other students at Thomas Jefferson Middle School on Tuesday.

Jessica Zara Gova’s daughter is a student in eighth grade at the school and said she was walking down a hall between classes for fifth and sixth periods when a fight between two sixth grade students broke out.

“Her and a lot of her friends were pepper sprayed,” Gova said. “Instead of trying to diffuse the situation he walked in the doors and pepper sprayed the whole crowd trying to pass through.”

Gova said there was no way her daughter and the other students could have gone around to another hallway because there was testing going on.

Her daughter called her from the school and when she arrived she said there were 30 or more students in the nurse’s office crying and screaming because their eyes and face burned, she said. Gova brought her daughter to the emergency room where they washed out her eyes. She had also heard that milk could help with face burning so she used milk as well. By late afternoon her daughter’s eyes were still swollen, she said.

The mother said she spoke with officials with the Port Arthur Independent School District but did not get an immediate answer.

She believes the constable needs to be reprimanded.

“I would have thought he had training to work with minors. He should have known how to diffuse the situation or done this another way,” Gova said when asked what she would like to see happen. “I wouldn’t want him working there any more. If you don’t know how to handle then you shouldn’t be working with students.”

PASID Superintendent Mark Porterie said he is aware of the incident and it is under investigation.