This story was updated Jan. 10, 2012.

Friendly High School parents and school officials are hoping to move forward from a fight Friday night at the Fort Washington school that led to a group being pepper-sprayed by police and the arrests of four students and an adult.

Friendly PTSA President William Johnson said the PTSA executive board will meet tonight at the school for its regularly scheduled meeting. He said the board will briefly discuss details of the fight, as well as any impact on future school events.

Initially, Johnson said parents might consider canceling several activities that had been scheduled this school year as incentives and rewards for good student behavior, but said the cancellations are now unlikely as the school needs to focus on building student achievement.

“We want to make sure the right message is being presented,” he said.

Johnson said there might be plans in the future to incorporate lessons or discussions for parents and students on how students should react in situations involving police.

Parents are welcome to attend tonight’s meeting and offer their feedback, Johnson said, but he noted the board is not planning to spend much time on the issue, and hopes to move forward with lessons learned.

“We’ve got much bigger fish to fry than this,” he said, referencing upcoming high school assessments and improvements that need to be made to the school’s auditorium and gym.

On Friday, four Friendly High School students and one adult were arrested on charges ranging from assault to malicious destruction of property after a fight broke out between spectators and Prince George’s police officers during a basketball game between Friendly and Temple Hills’ Crossland High School.

Cpl. Henry Tippett, a county police spokesman, was not able to confirm ages or genders available for the students arrested. He could not confirm whether the adult arrested was a student or parent.

At about 8:30 p.m. Friday, Tippett said, a Prince George’s police officer who was working security at a basketball game between Friendly and Crossland high schools saw an individual who was “being a little bit too disorderly” in the bleachers.

“The officer tried to escort this individual out, but it appears the individual got into an altercation with the officer,” he said.

Tippett said the individual assaulted the officer, causing the officer to fall down the bleachers and injure his back.

Tippett said as other officers working security at the game responded to the fall, a crowd of about 20 students started gathering angrily around them.

When the crowd of students did not follow police orders to back away, Tippett said, the officers deployed pepper spray into the air to break up the crowd. He said no one was injured from the spray.

Cpl. Evan Baxter, a police spokesman, said that per department protocol, an internal investigation is being conducted of the officers who were involved.

He said according to law enforcement guidelines, any time there is a use of force — from touching a person to escort techniques to lethal force such as firing a weapon — by an officer, an internal investigation takes place.

Baxter said officers are authorized to use pepper sprays in threatening situations when civilians are resistant to police’s instruction.

“[The internal investigation] will be used to determine, given the circumstances at the school at the time, whether the officers met that standard and had appropriately applied their use of force,” he said.

Tippett said that at some point, the officers working security called for back-up from other officers, and escorted the crowd of about 20 students from the game.

A few of the students resisted, resulting in a broken window at the front of the school and a broken window on a police cruiser, he said.

Tippett said the officer who fell down the bleachers was transported to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Although Johnson did not attend Friday’s basketball game, he said he has heard conflicting accounts of the fight.

“It’s making sure nothing else will happen, and those students who did get arrested are treated fairly,” he said.

Johnson said what is similar among the eyewitness accounts is that the officer who had been injured had motioned for the disruptive student to come down from the bleachers, and the student did not obey the order.

Briant Coleman, a spokesman for Prince George’s County Public Schools, said the school system hires security for all of their games.

“We are looking into the matter and as a part of due process will investigate it to see what actually occurred, why it occurred and give the students an opportunity to give their side of the story,” he said.

Coleman said no other major fights have taken place so far this school year.

mliu@gazette.net