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10/10/2005: "FILE UNDER "DUH!""

The term "girl-on-girl" always gets attention. And when combined with "vaseline smeared" and "violence," you pretty much have a winner. From the Boston Herald...

Cops are grappling with escalating girl-on-girl violence in Boston as fights have become so intense that the ``fair'' sex is even caking faces with Vaseline to give attackers' nails the slip.
Four flare-ups between female youths at two stations on the Red and Orange lines were doused on Sept. 26 alone, according to an internal memo the Herald obtained from the MBTA. Transit police are now sending a Female Intervention Team into schools.
``Girls like to look for problems,'' said sophomore Giselle Colon, 15, on her way home from high school one recent afternoon.
``They gossip a lot. They start rumors. And that's how you start fights. My mom says, `Don't fight. But if someone hits you, hit back.' ''
Suffolk Law School's Juvenile Justice Center has teamed with the Operation Stop Watch partnership of Transit, Boston and school police and Suffolk juvenile probation officers to understand how and why female youths, typically ages 13 to 17, express anger.
``We've learned, as we suspected, that there is a definite spike in female youth problems, arrests and incarceration,'' said Transit Police Lt. Mark Gillespie, whose department has arrested a half-dozen teenage girls since the start of the school year for brawling in MBTA stations.
Police said that in preparation for battle, girls will grease their faces with petroleum jelly and tie their tresses back so it's harder for opponents to grab a fistful.
``When males fight,'' Gillespie said, ``they fight and it's over. When girls fight, it's an automatic audience.