School Officials Plan Strategy in Wake of Stabbing

During a daylong meeting Saturday, administrators at a Santa Clarita Valley high school mapped out steps they plan to take to relieve parental and student fears in the wake of a stabbing on campus last Friday.

“I’m very disappointed. I’m very upset. And I’m very concerned,” Bill White, Canyon High School principal, said about the stabbing of one student by another. “One of our major goals is to provide a safe campus for our students.”

Pat Butterfield, a 16-year-old junior, was seriously wounded during an altercation with another youth about 3:30 p.m., officials said. The assailant, also 16, was arrested on suspicion of assault with intent to commit murder and is being held at Sylmar Juvenile Hall, said Lt. Tim Peters of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The stabbing occurred after the two students argued during lunchtime at a fast-food restaurant near the campus, said Clyde Smyth, superintendent of the William S. Hart Union High School District. Butterfield allegedly was threatened by the other youth at that time.

Butterfield was in fair condition Saturday after undergoing surgery at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital for knife wounds to the hand and diaphragm.

Such incidents are rare at Canyon High School in the suburban valley, where many people have moved in recent years to escape big city problems. White said administrators will meet with faculty members before classes start Monday to explain what occurred so that the teachers, in turn, can relate the facts to the students.

“We must deal with the rumors,” he said, including allegations that the stabbing was gang-related. “There are no identifiable gangs on our campus. There may be individual gang members.”

Because Butterfield is white and his alleged assailant is Latino, some parents and students have said the stabbing may have been racially motivated. However, school administrators and sheriff’s investigators denied that race was the cause of the incident.

With a rapidly growing and changing population that includes more minorities, resulting in crowded conditions in the schools, confrontations such as the one Friday are inevitable, Smyth said.

“This is a critical, critical thing for us,” he said. “We must try to calm the fears and concerns. . . . Basically, the situation is that we are urbanizing and things like this are going to come.”

The administration also will hold a student assembly Monday to discuss the stabbing and will meet with parents Tuesday night, White said. He said extra supervisors will patrol the campus and students will not be allowed to go off the campus during lunch for at least a week.

“If we have a good week, we’ll reinstitute open lunch periods,” White said.

In addition, he said, parents will be asked to volunteer to patrol the campus to identify any potential problems.

“This is not just our problem; it’s a community problem,” White said. “We need everybody’s help.”

One parent, Linda Van Auker, said she believes Butterfield was stabbed because he came to the aid of her son, Casey Carmack, after he was jumped and jabbed with a pencil by a group of Latino students last month. The group included the student accused of stabbing Butterfield, Van Auker and her son said.

“It’s unfortunately racially motivated,” said Van Auker, who is planning a meeting of concerned parents today.

Racial tension has gotten worse on campus, particularly in the last two years, Pat Butterfield said in an interview from his hospital bed.

While some valley residents say Latinos have verbally harassed white students, others say white students have done the same to Latinos.

The injured boy’s mother, Linda Butterfield, said she believes the Canyon High administration has ignored such conflicts, thinking “that if you look the other way and pretend everything’s OK, it’ll go away.”