PACOIMA, Calif. -- Responding to a recent escalation in student violence, Grant High School principal Joe Walker has hired the happy-go-lucky group of mercenaries known as "The A-Team" to boost campus security.

"In 1977, these soldiers of fortune were sent to prison for a crime they didn't commit," Walker said at a recent school board hearing on student violence. "I've heard that if you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team. And frankly I'm at my wit's end dealing with these damn kids."

Grant High has been plagued by simmering ethnic tensions and violence between Latino and Armenian students, which erupted most recently in an October 21 lunchtime melee involving approximately 200 combatants.

The A-Team, a group of Los Angeles-based underground mercenaries consisting of Face (Dirk Benedict), Murdock (Dwight Schultz), and B.A. Baracus (Mr. T), is working as a unit again for the first time since the 1987 cancellation of their popular NBC television show.

As on the show, A-Team members plan to work independently in order to maximize their individual strengths. Face will be responsible for seducing female students in order to get information, Murdock will orchestrate large on-campus explosions, and B.A. will patrol the cafeteria with an AK-47 specially equipped to intimidate -- but not injure or kill --troublemakers.

In addition to longtime unemployment, the team has also struggled to fill the leadership vacuum left by the recent death of Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith (George Peppard).

"Once we get back on our feet, we're thinking of getting a new leader, maybe a George Hamilton or a Mike Ditka," Face said at an introductory press conference called by Walker. "But for the time being we're just trying to pay the bills and keep on keeping on."

"Things aren't quite the same without... uh... what's-his-name," Murdock said. "But this being Hollywood, I'm just happy to get a gig."

"Shut up, fool," said Baracus. "We're trying to make this school safe, so that the kids can get an education."

When told of the school's new security plan, youth leaders said that they had not yet decided how to respond, although they are considering lacing B.A.'s milk with knockout drops and locking the A-Team in a warehouse full of power tools and scrap metal.