Incident in the Jungle

When the short, cocky Puerto Rican teen-ager first wandered into the gym of Manhattan's Joan of Arc Junior High School on West 93rd Street, no one bothered to ask him why he had come. The evening boxing class--an effort to keep potential delinquents off the streets--was in full swing. Physical Education Teacher James O'Tarrell. 28, simply assumed that the boy was just another pupil. Then the time came for the class to roll up the mats and leave. Instead of helping with the work, the boy stood on the sidelines and jeered.

When Instructor O'Tarrell asked him to lend a hand, the boy flatly refused. Finally, O'Tarrell told him to clear out, but the boy retorted: "You put me out." "I'll escort you out,'' said O'Tarrell, and took the teen-ager by the arm. At that point, the boy pulled a switchblade knife out of his pocket, shook himself free, and plunged the blade twice into O'Tarrell's back. As five other stunned school employees and more than a hundred pupils stared in silence, he fled into the street.

It took the police only a few hours to find him. Jose Vargas, 15, nicknamed "Chico Mambo'' because "I cut a cute rug." had a long history of delinquency (he was once arrested for holding up a younger boy at knife point), proudly announced that he had not been in school since April. He was also apparently proud of the stabbing. When photographers snapped his picture, it was of just one more arrogant, smirking young hoodlum who knows no law but that of the blackboard jungle. Said seriously injured Teacher O'Tarrell, when asked why he had not defended himself against Vargas: "We have orders not to strike them."

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