Why do people have the inexplicable urge to engage in violent behavior?

The lunch bell rang a few minutes too early. We all looked at the clock ticking away on the wall, and exhaled loudly as we made our way to the next period.

In class one of the students asked me, “Did you see it?”

I shook my head, “See what?”

He pulled out a cellphone and showed me a video. On the iPhone an all out melee was taking place. A multiracial disaster of flying fist and stomping kicks. The images were a jittery mess. At one point a girl was kicking a boy on the floor. The image shifted to a bloody boy that was trying to scramble under a table while attempting to escape another kid who, upon tackling him to the ground, was pounding him with his fists. A different boy appeared on the screen pushing towards two other young men. He gets a right jab right on his eye. The boy fell to the ground.

The video continued to shake and wobble along, as the melee moved away from the cafeteria towards the patio, and then finally towards the main hallway. There the video went black with the clicking sound of a taser.

The kids were laughing. I looked up at them, away from the screen.

“What is wrong with you?” I said pointing at one of the boys who was laughing.

The video had caught him sitting on one of the cafeteria tables. He was calmly observing the chaos right in the middle of the fight—ducking and pointing—while drinking an orange flavored soda.