|
Student uses weapon in MHS attack
Friday, October 3, 2008 11:43 AM PDT
Marshfield High School officials have revealed more details on an incident Wednesday morning in which three students attacked another with an improvised weapon.
The attack on a 15-year-old boy happened between classes shortly before 10 a.m., Dean of Students Greg Mulkey said.
Police said the fight was not gang-related, but the boy’s attackers did use an improvised weapon. Marshfield Principal Travis Howard said the weapon was made of two butane lighters.
“They were used to cut and scratch,” he said in an interview Thursday.
Mulkey did say the fight may have been related to an earlier incident in a physical education class, but school officials still were trying to piece together what led to the fight.
Police also arrested the third and final suspect in the fight Thursday at the school.
Coos Bay police spokeswoman Helen Thompson said police arrested student Steven L. Stemmerman, 18, of Coos Bay on a charge of third-degree assault, a class C felony. Stemmerman was taken to Coos County jail, where he was being held on $25,000 bail this morning.
On Wednesday, officers apprehended a 16-year-old girl and 17-year-old boy on counts related to the fight. Another 17-year-old boy who was taken into custody will be referred to the Juvenile Department on charges of disorderly conduct, after he interfered with police during the girl’s arrest. He was later released to his parents.
All involved in the incident were students at the high school.
Howard said the school will give the students a chance to explain their actions at an expulsion hearing to be scheduled. The hearing will take place regardless of whether the students are guilty of the charges leveled against them.
“That is the action the school has taken,” he said.
Howard said school administrators will meet and form a plan to address the incident. They plan to meet with all students to emphasize that violence on school grounds is not acceptable and if students have concerns or are being harassed, they need to let someone know.
Potential expulsion is standard school policy in situations of the magnitude of Wednesday’s fight. Howard said this is the first violent incident at Marshfield this school year.
However, it is not the first fight at a local high school in which a weapon was reportedly used. The first was at North Bend High School in early September where someone was said to have used brass knuckles in an attack at the school.
The Oregon Department of Education tracks violence at high schools statewide. Department spokesman Gene Evans said Marshfield does not show up on the “watch list” of schools that exceed the threshold of expulsions due to violence or incidents with weapons. He said a school of Marshfield’s size would have to have at least 10 expulsions due to violence to show up on the department’s radar. Marshfield’s rate is much lower, seeing at the most four or five cases in a school year. In some years none was reported.
“Never anything that would come to the attention of the state,” Evans added. |