Posted on 04/09/2014 12:36:48 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Armed with two knives, a 16-year-old student at Franklin Regional High School in Murraysville, Pennsylvania attacked his classmates this morning. Four students are in critical condition, while the suspect is in custody — after having been tackled by an assistant principal to end the attack:
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Multiple people were stabbed at a high school in the suburbs east of Pittsburgh, officials said.
Emergency management spokesman Dan Stevens said four students were believed to be seriously injured when a student with a knife stabbed or slashed others, injuring as many as 20.
Stevens said not all of the 20 injured were cut by the knife, though most were. Some suffered scrapes and cuts in the mayhem that ensued at Franklin Regional High School on Wednesday morning. Stevens says it doesn’t appear any students suffered life-threatening injuries.
While Stevens said all the injured are between 14 and 17 years old, hospital officials told CBS Pittsburgh the patients they were taking in from the incident range from 15 to 60 years old.
The FBI also responded to the scene, but are emphasizing that they are in a support role only. This will be a local investigation.
The number of potential victims might have been higher, but a quick-thinking student hit the fire alarm. Another saved one of the severely-wounded victims by staying with her and keeping pressure on the injury to keep her from bleeding out:
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Alyssa Finch, who said she is a student at Franklin Regional High School, told ABC News a fellow student pulled the fire alarm during the stabbing “because he knew what was happening … and he wanted the people to get out.”
KTLA in Los Angeles picked up on the story of the assistant principal’s action:
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
At Least 20 Students Injured in Pennsylvania High School Stabbing
WTAE has raw video of the suspect:
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
ABC continued its coverage with updates on medical treatment for the victims. All eight of the seriously wounded will need surgery, and three of them needed it immediately:
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Pray for the victims. If readers want to help, one way would be to contact your local Red Cross for blood donations, or contributions.
Any motive yet? I saw him in the cop car on one of the vids.
As far as belts with metal buckles go, I knew a good martial artist who gave a review of a street fight involving that weapon.
What caught his eye was that the typical technique involved swinging two feet or more of belt length for intermediate range use, but in this case, the user wrapped his hand, leaving about a foot of belt length, and used it much like nunchaku.
And, he noted, used it very effectively, leaving his opponent’s face a bloody mess.
As Dr. McCoy would say, it's dead Jim. I am just surprised at the breakneck speed at which the country is decaying.
Hribal is a Bohemian name (Bohemia used to exist where the Czech Republic is now).
Yup. Multiple effective techniques exist using a simple belt with a metal buckle. Same goes for a solid body steel pen aka tactical pen.
I NEVER fly unarmed. But my weapons are perfectly legal to carry through TSA aka Security Theater.
BTW the belt is particularly useful against a knife...
Ban assault knives. (Anything over 3 inches long, sharp and pointy.)
I agree - kids are told to be very passive. In fact, everybody is told to be passive and not fight back.
Many people here think you have to have a gun to fight back or stop an attack, but that’s not true. Anything will do. But you have to fight back quickly and forcefully and be sure of yourself, and Americans are now told to cower and wait for somebody else to help them.
“Hribal”
Bohemia (12)
Zbirow,Bohemia (1)
Austria (1)
“
“Oh, isn’t the school a knife free zone? took 20 to get knifed before someone stepped up to the plate! SMH”
One armed teacher or security guard could have stopped this tragedy far short of where it finally ended.
The European masters (Silver, Meyer, Liechtenauer...) often referred to the staff as "the Prince of weapons". It was the last weapon to be taught to an adept student, after the longsword, arming sword and buckler, dagger and such. Master the others first and then they'd allow a student to advance to the staff. While no weapon will guarantee anything, someone adept with a staff can do some impressive stuff.
When I was young, I learned from 'experienced' elders, that if they came at you with a knife, you run away, but if they have a gun, you charge them because you can't out run a bullet.
I live less than 5 miles from that school and have followed the local news most of the day. The perp was taken down by an assistant principal AND a student! One of the wounded was a boy who stepped in front of some girls the perp was going after.
The entire event from start to finish lasted only a couple of minutes as the perp ran down a crowded hall slashing and stabbing as he went. It all happened very fast. Some of the wounded kids never even saw the kid coming and he stuck them in the back.
Also talked to a woman who knows the kid and his family. She said he and his family are nice people and she is mystified as to what drove the kid to do this.
But the bottom line is that there were kids and adults who showed courage in the midst of a very confusing and fast evolving situation. They stood up and probably saved some lives. They weren't the sheep that you imply.
That assistant principal deserves some serious kudos for having the stones to take on the kid with a knife, while unarmed. Fighting against a knife while unarmed is terrifying. It can be done, and I have no idea if this principal ever had any training in the matter, but it’s a scary thing with or without training. Some training might even make it scarier because you know more about how fearsome a knife at close range can be.
Good on him for tackling the kid and stopping this. He’s a hero.
That kid is a hero too. He's a sheepdog. He probably didn't even think about it first.
The school has an armed municipal police officer on duty at all times -- they call them Resource Officers. They are real cops, not minimum wage rent-a-cops.
By the time the cop got to the wing of the school where the events occurred it was all over -- 20 people wounded and the perp had been subdued. It all went down very fast and these schools are very big.
Plus, do you really want the cop to open up with a .40 cal in a hallway full of kids?
…………….media claims the student is Amish……………. or something -
Czech? Bohemian, Christian.
Dunno.
“Plus, do you really want the cop to open up with a .40 cal in a hallway full of kids?”
Obviously not, but equally obviously, they didn’t have a well thought out plan for this kind of an emergency either. If what you say is true, they really need to rethink their strategy to keep the student body safe. At least in this case, the LEO wasn’t dealing with someone who had a gun, so he should have been able to use his weapon from a relatively short distance if he had been able to reach the scene. Actually, your commentary is proof positive that teachers need to be armed. “When seconds count, the cops are minutes away.” Prayers for the injured. From what I have read the injuries were very severe in at least four of the wounded. And at least in this instance the weapon of choice was not a firearm, so now the gun grabbers have to figure out how to spin this incident. The reality is, that we are dealing with disturbed people and not the availability of a gun. Other weapons can do a lot of damage as this tragedy has shown.
Details are yet to unfold.....
The mediots are probably very disappointed that it wasn’t a gun episode...
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