Four students were seriously injured and a security guard was hurt Thursday afternoon in a stabbing during a fight at Foss High School in Tacoma, after police were called to the campus and found five people wounded. Officers arrested a student suspect, who was later booked into the Pierce County Jail on five counts of first-degree assault and held on $750,000 bail.
The Tacoma Fire Department said the four stabbed students were in critical but stable condition. The security guard and the suspect had minor injuries. Tacoma police said all of the victims were cut or stabbed, and the school canceled classes and after-school activities Friday after the attack.
The violence began inside the high school during a fight that officers said led to the stabbing. One witness, Analayjha, said it may have started after someone took another student’s vape pen, and described a student with a knife stabbing four kids and one adult. “It’s ghetto. Why are we stealing from people?” she said, adding that bringing a weapon to school and “killing people is crazy.”
Another witness, Imonie, said the school went into lockdown and students began sharing a video of the fight by AirDrop. She said the clip showed “the whole fight and stuff” and that “there was blood everywhere.” Imonie also said she had heard the person with the knife may have been an older student with prior jail time, and that the fight was over “a puff.”
Investigators were still working Friday to determine what led up to the attack, what weapon was used and where inside the school it happened. What is already clear is that a school day in Tacoma ended with four students in critical but stable condition, a security guard hurt, and a student jailed on five counts of first-degree assault.