Two students were stabbed on campus Monday at Verdugo Hills High School in Tujunga.
Both students were hospitalized with injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening, and a suspect was detained by police, according to a school district update.
The stabbings took place at about 1:45 p.m., said Los Angeles Police Department Public Information Officer Tony Im.
Im said that as many as four people were involved in the attack against the two students and that they fled the area in an automobile after the violence. The officer confirmed that two students were transported to a hospital for treatment, although he had no information about their conditions.
A 17-year-old suffered stab wounds or lacerations to the head, shoulder and back, said a school district source with knowledge of the incident who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to release information. The second student was injured after intervening to help the first, the source added.
One of the attackers, possibly the one wielding the knife, is 14 years old, the source reported.
There is concern that the incident is gang-related, the source said.
The school district declined to confirm or deny the additional information.
Earlier in the school year, a shooting left a 17-year-old boy wounded just outside Granada Hills Charter High School, a public school that is within L.A. Unified territory but is not run by the district.
And, during the first week of school, a student was stabbed on the Franklin High School campus in Highland Park. The youths who were shot and stabbed required hospitalization, but their wounds were not considered life-threatening.
There also have been several incidents of loaded and unloaded guns being found in the possession of students.
At Verdugo Hills, the first notice to parents about Monday’s stabbing went out at 2:24 p.m.
“An incident is occurring on our campus that has required our school to go into a ‘lockdown’ at 2:08 p.m.,” the alert stated.
In a lockdown, all gates and doors in the school are locked, and students must remain in a secure and supervised space, such as a classroom.
The next notice was time-stamped at 3:07 p.m.
“Our school remains on lockdown at this time,” the update said. “We implemented lockdown procedures in response to an incident of violence among our students at 2:00 p.m. Students remain safe, and the parents of the students involved in the incident have been contacted.”
The school’s regular dismissal time is 3:36 p.m.
A third notice went out at 3:50 p.m.
“The lockdown of our campus has been lifted and our school remains open and safe for instruction.” The Los Angeles School Police have “indicated that police activity has concluded, and a suspect has been detained.”
The alert also included general information about the victims: “Two students were injured but promptly received medical attention by the responding officers and emergency medical personnel on-site. Subsequently, the victims were transported to a local hospital for further treatment.”
Per standard procedure, the district will deploy mental health workers to campus as well as extra neighborhood school police patrols and on-campus officers “for the remainder of the week,” the update stated.
