Panicked parents ? scared children cowering at their side ? blasted Steuart Hill Academy, a city school where a 12-year-old girl was stabbed early Wednesday morning. Somesaid the incident, which sent the student to the hospital with multiple stab wounds after a 10-year-old classmate allegedly attacked her with a steak knife, was not unusual.
“I?m not surprised; my son was stabbed in the hand here a few months ago,” said Diane Carr, whose 13-year-old son was injured at the school recently. Carr attributed the violence to the school?s mix of middle school age and elementary school children.
“Middle-school kids should not be in the same school as kindergartners,” Carr said. “The middle-school kids are rough.”
For Jessica Wiles, who quickly escorted her 6-year-old daughter, Cheyenne, to a waiting car, the incident was the last straw.
“My daughter will not be coming back,” Wiles said. “I refuse to believe she is safe at this school,” she said.
Calls to the city schools superintendent?s office were not immediately returned Wednesday.
While concern for the victim, who was wounded in the chest and forearm, was foremost on the minds of parents, the incident was the last straw for some who said city schools had too many problems.
“I hope to God she?s OK,” Donnie Johns, Cheyenne?s aunt, said of the victim. “But something has got to be done about the city?s schools; children are not safe,” Johns said, shaking her head.
Wiles, along with Johns, said they found out about the incident on television, a fact that they both said only heightened their unease with the city school system
“All the parents are seeing it on the news. We weren?t being contacted,” Johns said. “It?s outrageous”
Police said the 12-year-old victim was taunting her assailant, who used a steak knife to wound her several times. The victim was being treated at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, but there was no word on her condition.
sjanis@baltimoreexam
