A student was stabbed during a fight at Citadel High School in Halifax yesterday morning.
According to Halifax Regional School Board spokesman Doug Hadley, the Grade 11 victim was entering the school just before 9 a.m. when he was attacked by another male student and stabbed with a sharp object, believed to be a knife. He was transported to hospital a short time later with non life-threatening injuries.
Hadley said the alleged attacker is in Grade 10 at Citadel High. He is alleged to have quickly fled the scene, and no weapon was recovered.
“Police don’t believe it’s a random act,” Hadley said. “In fact, they believe there was some type of incident – perhaps this past weekend – that spurred this.”
Students exiting the building at lunch hour said there were rumours circulating through the school all morning that a fight had occurred, but the building was not locked down and teachers were not discussing the incident.
“Somebody texted me about it,” said a student who gave his name as John. “I saw a bunch of cops out back but I didn’t know what was going on. There was a forensic car that showed up too.”
John said there had been a few sporadic fights at the school in September when classes resumed, but that things had “calmed down” in the past few weeks.
Police spokesman Brian Palmeter said students should be reporting ongoing disputes to police to prevent them from escalating into more violent behavior.
“Without people talking to us and coming forward with information about these disputes, it really limits what we can do,” Palmeter said.
He added they know the suspect they’re looking for, but he hadn’t been found as of late yesterday.
On Sept. 17, police were also called to Citadel High after a fight between a student and non-student resulted in the school being put in lock down.
– with files from Philip Croucher
