Boy Stabbed in Middle School Class

A knife attack that erupted during an English class at a North Hollywood middle school Tuesday left one student hospitalized and a 14-year-old suspect in custody, authorities said.

The eighth-grade class at Walter Reed Middle School was watching a video on American folklore when the alleged assailant drew a knife from his sleeve and stabbed a 14-year-old classmate three times, twice in the chest, witnesses and school district officials said.

The victim was flown to Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles, where he underwent surgery for injuries to his liver. He was reported in fair condition Tuesday, a hospital spokesman said.

Principal Lawrence Tash said that in his nine years at the school there has never been such a violent incident.

“We don’t have a school where weapons are a problem,” Tash said of the campus in the 4500 block of Irvine Avenue in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood. “One boy out of 2,000 students did something wrong.”

Although school police said they were unaware of a motive for the attack, officials and students who knew the boys and witnessed the attack said the stabbing appeared to be sparked by a dispute over a girl at the school.

Two girls who were in the English class during the stabbing said they saw the assailant’s blade before the attack.

“He had the knife in his sleeve,” said Amanda Krauss, 14, of North Hollywood. “[The suspect] stood behind him during the whole class. Every time we went up to the teacher, he gave us a mean look, like: ‘You’d better not say anything.’ ”

She said that one of her friends even asked the boy why he had the knife--a question he answered by laughing, Krauss said.

With the lights off and the video winding down, the boy stabbed his classmate three times.

“Everybody started getting hysterical,” said student Cora Scott, 14.

The alleged attacker, however, “walked out of class cool and calm,” Krauss said.

An LAPD unit spotted the boy about two hours after the incident near Hart Street and Laurel Canyon Boulevard and arrested him without incident. Police said the boy led them to the place where he had discarded a three-inch paring knife.

Students in the class said the suspect had written a note to a girl before the attack that laid out his plan to stab the other boy. But neither school officials nor police could confirm the report.

The suspect had transferred from Sun Valley Junior High School two semesters ago, according to school officials and students.

Los Angeles Unified crisis counselors made themselves available to students traumatized by the incident.