A 16-year-old boy brought a knife to school and was fatally stabbed when another boy — allegedly his friend — tried to take it away from him, officials in North Carolina said on Thursday.
“It can only be described in one word, senseless,” said District Attorney Jim O’Neill, who also called the fatal stabbing “an accident,” WXII reported.
The incident happened Tuesday morning during what had been described as a fight between two students at North Forsyth High School in Winston-Salem, as CrimeOnline reported. The fight was captured on video — and officials pleaded with the community not to “share, like, or comment” on the videos out of respect for the families involved.
Those videos were a key part of the investigation, as well as multiple witnesses, O’Neill said.
The dead boy, identified as Cameron Graham, brought the knife that killed him to school, O’Neill said. An 18-year-old student, he said, was defending himself and trying to wrestle the knife away when Graham was stabbed in the chest. The district attorney described the incident, saying both students had their hands on the knife — the 18-year-old suffered wounds to his hands — when the knife came up “in the course of the altercation” and struck Graham in the chest, puncturing his heart.
“This was not an intentional act on the part of the 18-year-old. It was not. There is not a shred of evidence that suggests that this was anything more than an accident,” O’Neill said. “There is no probable cause in this case, no probable cause whatsoever to charge the 18-year-old.”
The 18-year-old has not been identified, but O’Neill said the two students were friends and had ridden the bus to school together and talked earlier Tuesday morning.
Graham’s family said they were “seeking legal counsel to assist with this investigation,” apparently disagreeing with officials’ determination the stabbing was accidental and attributing that decision to “Sheriff Kimbrough and the police department” and not the district attorney.
“We have lost two family members tragically, one shot ten times in the back, and now a fatal stabbing, and have received no justice,” Graham’s aunt, Charlita Summers, said. “We are asking that any legal entities that are willing to help look further into these investigations will come forward to help the family at this time.”
It’s not clear what shooting Summers referred to.
For his part, Forsyth County Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough Jr. said that metal detectors weren’t in use the day Graham brought his knife to school.
Kimbrough, Winston-Salem Police Chief William Penn Jr., and Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools Superintendent Don Phipps all said that school safety was a top priority and that metal detectors weren’t the sole answer.
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[Featured image: WXII screenshot]
