20 people were injured in a stabbing attack today by a 16 year old male. The student in question was taken into custody. Eight students were critically injured.
At least eight of the victims who were in critical condition – seven of them between 15 and 17 years old – were admitted to nearby Forbes Regional Hospital, according to hospital spokesman Jesse Miller.
Three of the students were still in the operating room as of 11 a.m. EDT, Forbes' chief medical officer, Mark Rubino, said in a new conference televised on Al Jazeera. Two of them were stabbed in the lower abdomen and another in the upper abdomen, Rubino said. He characterized the wounds as "deep penetrating injuries."
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) system treated 11 patients at four different hospitals, UPMC spokeswoman Wendy Zellner said. One 17-year-old at UPMC East had sustained facial wounds.
Most of the victims had been released to their parents by 12:30 p.m. EDT.
The earlier diary about this incident was uncalled for. To accuse people of somehow not caring about this incident because it somehow doesn't fit the narrative is ludicrous. Most people do care about incidents like this and many have kids or grandkids of their own. It would be frightening to happen anywhere.
Like any incident of this nature, the underlying causes must be determined. What prompts people like this to turn hateful and start stabbing people? Were there warning signs that school officials should have seen but didn't? Were there warning signs that were ignored elsewhere down the line?
Anytime one kid slips through the cracks like this is unacceptable. Gun control may reduce the number of people killed like this, but it will not address the underlying causes that cause kids to snap and go postal in this nature. Everybody is accountable from family members to law enforcement to teachers to public officials to ensure that this sort of tragedy doesn't happen again.
At the same time, we cannot create the sort of fear-based society which lends itself to an ever-growing police state that is out of control. As the example of the 9/11 attacks showed us, when we do that, it will create more harm than good. The government still has to trust the fact that the great majority of our youth are not like this individual who decided to commit these acts of violence.