Police in Philadelphia arrested a middle school student after he stabbed two teaching aides with a knife hidden in his bag.
The 11-year-old student, who attended Castor Gardens Middle School, is alleged to have stabbed a 63-year-old woman in the stomach, and a 31-year-old woman in the arm, according to reports.
Per Fox29, he removed the knife from his bag during class, and then injured the two teaching aides who tried to stop him from hurting others.
The older victim was rushed to hospital to be treated, and both victims are expected to make a full recovery. The student, who is said to have developmental issues, was taken into custody and had his weapon removed.
Castor Gardens, a public middle school that has been open since 1998, has metal detectors, but they failed to stop the student from bringing a weapon onto school premises.
According to seventh grader Nathan Cancel, the school security is lacking, as he told Fox29: "The security at the school, they have metal detectors and the metal detectors go off and the people don't check the bags of the children that go through the metal detectors."
In response, Monique Braxton, spokesperson for the School District of Philadelphia, told 6abc: "There is a metal detector here. Why did it not pick up the knife and alert the officer of school safety and climate managers who were close by? We don't know. The office of school safety is currently investigating this particular metal detector."
Newsweek contacted the school district for comment via email.
Parents rushed to the scene after receiving a text that there was an active threat in the school, and found the building to be placed under lockdown for an hour and a half after the incident took place.
After the lockdown was lifted, parents and guardians were reunited with their children. Although no children were harmed, some loved ones initially feared the very worst.
One grandfather of a child attending the school told Fox29: "I come here and there's cops, ambulances. What am I supposed to think? It's a possibility it could have been him. It's the last thing you want to think of."
Initial reporting suggested the student may have mental health concerns, with Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore telling Fox29: "It's our understanding, it's very preliminary, the child had some developmental issues so I'm not sure how we are going to proceed at this point."
When contacted for comment, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police told Newsweek: "We will defer that your questions should be answered by the School District of Philadelphia...We have no further information, as updates are received it will be shared."
Braxton also told 6abc: "I think in this case we have to give this young man some grace. He is a minor. As the police have told us, he has some special needs, special circumstances.
"The good thing about all this is that both employees suffered non-life-threatening injuries and they're going to be fine. Everyone was terrified, including the student that had the knife."
The city of Philadelphia is the ninth-most dangerous city in the U.S. Although the number of homicide victims fell by 19 percent between 2022 and 2023, the city still has a higher homicide rate than before the pandemic, with 256 homicide victims in 2019, and 328 homicide victims in 2023.
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