Youth Held in Hammer Attack of Fellow Student

A 16-year-old boy was in police custody Saturday, accused of bludgeoning another student with a hammer during a dispute over a video-game controller, authorities said.

The attack occurred Thursday at Warrensville Heights High School.

The victim, also 16, suffered a fractured skull and was taken to Hillcrest Hospital. The hospital would not release the condition of the boy, who is in the ninth grade.

His accused attacker, an 11th-grader, could be charged with felony assault, police Detective Dennis Fossett said. He was being held in a juvenile detention center.

Fossett said the 11th-grader told him Wednesday that the ninth-grader threatened to “beat him until he stopped breathing” if he did not bring in money to replace a lost video-game controller that had belonged to the ninth-grader.

On Thursday, the 11th-grader took a hammer, walked up behind the ninth-grader and hit him twice on the right side of the head, Fossett said.

Witnesses told police that the ninth-grader fell, and his attacker swung the hammer two more times and kicked at his head. A security guard later restrained the 11th-grader.

School Superintendent Gwendolyn Cooke said she would recommend the 11th-grader’s immediate expulsion.