Spanish teen stabs 5 at his high school

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) — A teenager in southern Spain stabbed three teachers and two students in a violent rampage at his high school on Friday.

Authorities took the 14-year-old boy into custody after the incident in the city of Jerez de la Frontera, while his victims were rushed to the hospital with injuries of varying degree.

Witnesses told Spanish daily El Pais that the boy showed up late to class. When he entered, he pulled two kitchen knives from his backpack and told another boy in the classroom: "I'm going to kill you."

According to reports, a teacher who intervened when the knife-wielding boy attacked his classmate was cut in her eye and was undergoing surgery. Patricia del Pozo, the top education official in the region of Andalucia, where the incident took place, said the wound only affected the teacher's eyelid and that she was not expected to lose her vision.

The attacker then went into another classroom and attacked another schoolmate and two more teachers, one of whom tried to take the knives away from him.

None of the injuries are life-threatening.

"He was always calm and focused. He didn't talk in class and he was always quiet. He was usually alone during recess and there were classmates who made fun of him," one of his classmates told El Pais.

Police said they were psychologically evaluating the boy to determine if he was fully aware of what he was doing.

Alejandro Castilla, president of the school's parent association, told El Pais that the group was not aware of any serious issues but speculated that "something might have happened in the school that perhaps wasn't managed correctly."

Although violent attacks in Spanish schools are not common, authorities recently warned about an "alarming surge" in youth crime across the country.

In a report released earlier this month, Spain's State Attorney General's Office said there was a 15% increase in youth-perpetrated homicides from 2021 to 2022, as well as a rise in violence, technology-driven bullying, and a 45% jump in sexual aggression charges.