Md. high school offers $30 to food-fight snitches, then backtracks after students complain

COLUMBIA, Md. (AP) — The reward for information wasn’t much: 30 bucks. Then again, neither was the crime: a cafeteria food fight.
A high school principal’s offer to get students to name the names behind the flying cheeseburgers was withdrawn after students questioned the propriety of paying students to snitch about something so minor.
”A $30 offer might be tempting, but is it just?“ student Paige Eckley wrote in the Wilde Lake High School student newspaper.
No injuries were reported in the December food fight, which led to the suspension of at least two students, officials said.
No reward money was paid to students and Howard County school officials are reconsidering such offers, school system spokeswoman Patti Caplan said.
She noted that it ”was not just food being thrown. There were water bottles, trays and utensils.“
Cash rewards have been offered in the past for information leading to those responsible for vandalism, graffiti or theft, Caplan said.
The school is in Columbia, about 15 miles southwest of Baltimore, where homemade ”Stop Snitching“ videos have been distributed on the streets, threatening people who cooperate with police.