An after-school fight that started with a shove between Martin Middle School students Tuesday afternoon, ended with a sixth-grader stabbing two classmates a few blocks from campus.
The assailant stabbed one student in the side and the other in the hand, said Lt. Ken Young of the Clark County School District police. Both were taken to University Medical Center and were treated, he said, adding that neither wound appeared to be life-threatening.
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The student who stabbed the other students was taken to the Clark County Juvenile Detention Facility and faces charges of battery with a deadly weapon, Young said. The student was not identified.
"Anytime you hear something like this, you are surprised," Young said.
The students got into a fight shortly after school ended around 2:30 p.m.
Several students who saw the incident at Elm Avenue and 28th Street said one student started the fight when he shoved another student. As the two were fighting, the student who shoved the first student, pulled out a knife and stabbed the other in the side.
Another student was cut on the hand when he tried to pull his wounded friend away from the assailant, said Markele Mazique, 11.
"I've never seen something like this," said Markele, a Martin Middle School student who is a friend of the two sixth-grade victims.
Markele's mother, who declined to be identified, said she would withdraw her son from school because of the stabbing. "He's not going there (Martin Middle School) anymore," she said as she stood a block from where the students were stabbed.
After word of the stabbing spread, dozens of students and residents stood on the sidewalk discussing the incident.
Tisha White and Sylvia Botelho, both 11 and sixth-graders at Martin, appeared shaken as they described seeing one of the victims fall to the ground after the stabbing. They described themselves as friends of the victims.
"We just want to know if he's OK," Tisha said.
"I saw him on the ground bleeding, but he wasn't crying or anything," she said.
Little was known Tuesday about the assailant. Young said he was a sixth-grade student at the school and used a folding knife to assault the other students. Young said the incident probably was not gang-related.
Edward Goldman, Clark County School District associate superintendant of the Education Services Division, said that such a situation usually will result in the student being suspended and a recommendation to the Clark County School Board that he or she be expelled. The School Board decides whether the student is expelled.
Goldman said the school district has a team of counselors who will be available if the principal requests extra help. But he said that he did not expect the principal to request it because the stabbings were not fatal.
The principal at Martin Middle School, Regina Adams, declined to comment on the stabbings.
Several high-profile violent incidents involving Clark County District School students have occurred in the past month.
On Sept. 21, a Clark County School District bus was shot three times during a stop on its route at Alexander near H Street. Two 17-year-olds were arrested the next day and were facing charges related to the shooting, which was gang-related, police said.
On Sept. 8, a 16-year-old boy fired shots in the parking lot of Legacy High School during a football game.
