One person was killed in a stabbing at Harding High School in St. Paul on Friday.
Police responded shortly before noon on Friday to the high school at 1540 6th St. E., a few blocks north of Interstate 94 in the Daytons Bluff area. Shortly after 1pm, police confirmed the incident was a stabbing at a school where “one person died.”
Police did not say if the victim was a student. An update is due this afternoon.
Ryan Stanzel, a spokesperson for St. Paul Public Schools, said in a statement, “Due to a serious incident within Harding High School, the school closed at approximately 11:45 a.m. following safety procedures. School. The school will remain in place until the building is cleared.”
Stanzel said the students were forced to go home for the day at 1:20 p.m. Evening activities and weekend events at Harding have been cancelled.
A Minnesota Patrol helicopter hovered overhead Friday afternoon, driving dozens of students out of a school lined with dozens of police cars. There were also several cars of parents waiting outside the school to pick up their children.
Among the waiting parents were Tish Tensley and Felicia Henderson, whose children attended Harding. Henderson, whose daughter is a freshman, said she happened to drive by when she saw a large police presence.
“I got scared. I didn’t know what was going on, so I quit. A lot of things were going on at school, so I was scared,” she said.
Tensley said she got a call from her second grade daughter saying she needed to be picked up right away.
“Her voice was really trembling. I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ She said someone was stabbed and locked up,” Tensley said. “I told her she needs to be calm and she needs to sit tight because if she’s in lockdown there’s no way I can get her out. “
Tensley, who was at work, told her daughter to stay in touch by text message while she headed to school and waited outside.
The incident came less than a month after a 15-year-old boy was arrested with a handgun at school. According to St. Paul Pioneer PressNo one was injured in the incident.
Henderson and Tensley said the incident occurred amid growing concerns about the students’ safety. Tensley said her daughter was threatened with violence by a Harding classmate yesterday after she cheered for her brother’s game at Johnson High School. Two weeks ago, she said, a group of boys physically assaulted a girl just outside the school entrance, killing dozens of children while her parents desperately tried to get them into the car. caused a brawl.
“There was no police presence at the time,” Henderson said. “The kids were just fighting.”
Henderson said problems at school have escalated in recent years. Another daughter, who graduated in 2018, rarely encountered problems.
“It wasn’t always like this,” she said.
By providing community support and healing resources such as yoga and reflexology, as well as open conversations to help young people express their frustrations, Tensley and Henderson are helping to bring more people together. He says that violence can be avoided.
“As parents, we can say it’s a school, but we are limited in what we can do with the school. We also have a responsibility to our communities and people,” she said. .
This is a breaking news update.return to startlib.com for more information.
