Breaking Up Fights

I experienced a challenge recently that is still on my mind. It was yesterday, actually, and I am having some trouble processing. I had one near-fight erupt outside of my classroom in my first year teaching high school, and another near-fight erupt inside my classroom that same semester. In the second, the worst that happened was some desks were overturned, as we were able to separate the two girls in question. Last year, a fight that began in the hallway somehow barreled into my room and I ended up watching two girls with their hands deep in the other’s hair pulling out as much as possible for ten minutes until an administrator arrived to break it up. Yesterday, I was amazed as a 6’4” male Spanish teacher watched as I and another female biology teacher (close to my height) broke up a fight in his classroom between two boys. Though he towers over everyone in his class and clearly had the physical ability to help us bring this to an end, he literally stood there and watched as we came between the two boys, both of us taking missed hits and swings and trying to get past the dozen students trying to film. The questions going through my mind were a combination of the following:

1) Why did he just stand there? Part of me knew he was hesitant to get involved in case anyone got hurt and he would be liable, but another part was genuinely perplexed that he was okay watching two women much smaller than him intervene.

2) How can we get past this culture of students filming fights instead of trying to prevent them or stop them once they start? As the biology teacher and I struggled to get this boy out of the classroom, we were met by a WALL of at least 10 students with their cameras who seemed much more interested in getting good footage than they did in seeing out the wellbeing of either of their classmates. I literally stood against the door blocking them once we managed to get in the hallway, and they kept trying to push the door open in order to get into the hallway to get more video.

3) What is the actual solution for this? In my four years teaching, I have always called an administrator immediately, but with the size of my school, it has always taken over 5 minutes for someone to arrive regardless of whether it was a legitimate health emergency like a seizure or a fight of any variety. I have been told to stay out of it and not put my hands on students for liability purposes, but are we really supposed to feel comfortable watching our students get hurt? Are we supposed to develop the same insensitivity to fighting that our students develop?

I’m curious if any of you have experiences similar to mine, or insight on the matter. Somehow, sitting back and calling an administrator doesn’t cut it for me, and I know there must be better solutions in places elsewhere. In addition, once I am a leader, I don't think I will feel any more comfortable breaking up fights than I do now. I know we have all seen videos of SROs slamming kids to the ground and carrying out gross abuses of power, so I don't know if an SRO presence is truly part of a good solution here. Given that fights can be minimized but are ultimately inevitable to an extent, what are legitimately good ways to handle this?