A food fight involving hundreds of students broke out in the Tooele High School cafeteria on Monday, causing the school to go into lockdown and spurring a police investigation into the incident.

The food fight started around 12:30 p.m. during the last lunch of the day.

“Sometimes I hear people say that this is kids pulling a prank in school,” said THS Principal Kendall Topham. “But we are taking this very seriously as an event that disrupted the orderly process of school.”

Students brought in eggs and tomatoes to throw. There were also reports of whole apples being thrown around, with the potential to do serious harm, according to Topham.

“We were just sitting at a table and a girl yells, ‘food fight’ and everyone just started throwing food,” said Meagan Conklin, a senior at THS. “It was pure chaos. Everyone was screaming and trying to get out. It only lasted about 10 seconds though.”

This matter is still being investigating by the school with the help of Tooele City police.

“We have sent a number of referrals to juvenile court, and I am continually getting more names of persons involved into my office, so it is hard to say how many in total were responsible for the mess,” said Topham.

As the school year comes to a close, THS staff are being more vigilant in walking the halls and observing the parking lot to make sure events like this don’t happen again, Topham said.

As soon as the throwing, running and screaming had ended, an immediate clean-up of the lunch room was ordered by the high school’s administration.

“Student leaders helped the custodian clean up the mess,” said Topham. “I even saw foodfight victims that had food all over their clothes that were helping in the cleaning process.”

Topham promised consequences for organizers of the incident.

“Punishments have not yet been decided but there will be action taken upon those that participated,” said Topham.

Staff writer Jake Gordon contributed to this article.