A California high school student has been stabbed to death in a classroom fight.

A 16-year-old stu­dent involved in a brawl at a North­ern Cal­i­for­nia high school was fatal­ly stabbed Wednes­day inside a class­room full of stu­dents, offi­cials said.

Anoth­er stu­dent was also stabbed, and the sus­pect, a 15-year-old fresh­man, is in cus­tody, accord­ing to San­ta Rosa police. All three stu­dents are male.

San­ta Rosa Police Chief John Cree­gan told a news con­fer­ence that the two vic­tims, both fresh­men at Mont­gomery High School, entered an art class around 11:15 a.m. and got into a fight with a fresh­man. There were about 30 peo­ple in the classroom.

A teacher ini­tial­ly arbi­trat­ed the fight, but the police chief said the first grad­er took out a fold­ing knife and stabbed the third grader.

The teenagers went to the school infir­mary and both were con­scious and alert when they were tak­en to the hos­pi­tal, Cre­gan said. How­ev­er, one of the teens died from three stab wounds to the upper body.

Sopho­more Owen Seiber­ling told the San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle that he was with a 16-year-old in the school office and tried to put pres­sure on his wound.

“I had to lift him up, he was drip­ping blood,” Seiber­ling said.

Anoth­er stu­dent is expect­ed to sur­vive with a stab wound to his left hand, the chief said. The young men were unarmed.

Cre­gan said the fresh­man fled and was lat­er found hid­ing at the bot­tom of a creek and tak­en into cus­tody. Inves­ti­ga­tors are still look­ing for fold­ing knives.

The three stu­dents seem to know each oth­er and have had fights before, Cre­gan said, but it’s not imme­di­ate­ly clear what trig­gered Wednes­day’s fight.

“There appears to have been some sort of alter­ca­tion between these stu­dents before,” Cre­gan said, with­out pro­vid­ing addi­tion­al details.

The stu­den­t’s name was not imme­di­ate­ly announced.

“It’s a real­ly sad day. I’m heart­bro­ken by the tragedy that hap­pened here today,” San­ta Rosa City Schools Super­in­ten­dent Anna Trun­nell said at a press conference.

At a press con­fer­ence, sev­er­al stu­dents ques­tioned their safe­ty and despite know­ing there was trou­ble between the three teenagers, school offi­cials took action to stop the stu­dents. I asked him why he did­n’t do more. The staff mem­ber left with­out responding.

Offi­cials pre­vi­ous­ly said none of the dis­tric­t’s schools had met­al detec­tors or police offi­cers inside.

“We will be eval­u­at­ing how we approach our stu­dents to sup­port them and let them know that this is a safe place, and we will look at how we do that specif­i­cal­ly. said Trunell.

The San­ta Rosa Press-Demo­c­rat report­ed that in 2020 the dis­trict board vot­ed to “pause” the school sup­port work­er pro­gram to review it, but the depart­ment is des­per­ate to get it back in the classroom.

“In 2022, the SRPD received 945 call­outs at schools here in San­ta Rosa. Our city is feel­ing the effects of not hav­ing a School Resource Offi­cer in our school,” said a senior offi­cer at the depart­ment. The San­ta Rosa Police Asso­ci­a­tion, the union rep­re­sent­ing the police, wrote on Face­book after Wednes­day’s violence.

San­ta Rosa is a city known for its winer­ies, locat­ed about 50 miles north of San Francisco.

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