OREM, Utah
As a group of boys at a Utah high school changed Tuesday
morning into gym clothes for physical education class, a straight-A
student pulled out a knife in the locker room and stabbed five of his
classmates, sending the injured running for their lives and covered in
blood, police said.
The 16-year-old suspect, with no record of
disciplinary trouble, also stabbed himself in the neck and was cornered
by school workers until a police officer assigned to Mountain View High
School got to the locker room and subdued him with a Taser shot.
The five victims are all expected to survive, hospital officials said
Tuesday afternoon. The two most seriously injured were in critical but
stable condition, according to Utah Valley Hospital.
The suspect
was treated and released following the attack, which spread fear and
panic among students who described a gruesome scene immediately after
the stabbings.
Orem police posted a letter online they said was from the parents of
the teen, apologizing. They said none of the victims had done anything
to hurt their son and said the stabbings were not racially or ethnically
motivated.
‘‘We are at a loss to express how deeply sorry we are for the pain and injury caused,’’ the letter says.
Police
said the knife used in the attack had a 3-inch blade, but they did not
identify the suspect who remained in custody by name because of his age.
School district spokeswoman Kimberly Bird said the suspect was a new
sophomore student who was previously homeschooled. There were no
indications he was having problems or being bullied, she said.
Investigators
are talking to students who witnessed the attack and who knew the
suspect as they try to determine a motive, said Gary Giles, the police
chief in the city of Orem about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City where
the attack happened.
‘‘Is it a fight? Is it
somebody who is upset with somebody? Is there more to it than that?’’
Giles said. ‘‘I don’t have those answers.’’
In the mayhem
immediately after the attack, junior Karen Martinez said she saw three
victims run from the locker room toward the school’s central office, one
suffering from a head wound and another with a neck injury. One had
blood running down the back of his shirt, she said.
‘‘It was
awful,’’ said Martinez. ‘‘It was so terrifying. I didn’t know any of the
kids but still it was like an awful feeling to see all those kids
getting hurt.’’
Student Paxton Ransom was in the locker room when
it happened. He saw blood on the floor and thought it was fake until he
looked around the corner and saw someone on the ground who had been
stabbed. He ran away and hid with other students in the school’s weight
room.
Eduviges Sanchez had just dropped her son
off at the school when she saw a student outside with a blood gushing
from a large cut in the side of his neck.
She
joined hundreds of parents who rushed to the school to find out if their
children were safe, letting him go back to classes after giving him a
hug.
The school, which has 1,300 students, was put
on lockdown after the stabbings for about an hour until police
determined there was no danger for students. Some parents took their
children home and others allowed them to finish the school day.
The
school has a large Latino population and is the most diverse among
Alpine School District’s nine high schools, Bird said. Orem is a city of
about 94,000 residents with a higher portion of Latinos than the state
average.
Governor Gary Herbert’s children attended
the school years ago, and he tweeted that ‘‘It’s a community close to
our hearts. My prayers are with the students and staff.’’
The
school plans to investigate if the suspect had had been acting in a way
recently that should have been addressed by school officials prior to
the attack, Bird said.
The school bans weapons,
but doesn’t have metal detectors or other security procedures to check
students each day, she said. It’s unlikely they'll implement any of
those now, either, because they don’t want to make the school feel like a
prison, Bird said
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