It promised to be a normal day at the Elena García Armada high school in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz), but the start of classes yesterday was interrupted by the stabbing attack by a minor under the age of 14 against their colleagues and teachers, with two students and three teachers injured with injuries of varying degrees.
One of the teachers, the biology teacher, took the worst part, with an affected eyelid. She had to be rushed to a hospital, where she underwent surgery yesterday afternoon. The rest of the injured were referred to different health centers. The management of the center decided to suspend classes.
The boy got up from his chair shortly after 8:20 a.m. with the intention of attacking another student. It was then that the rest of the classmates and several teachers tried to reduce it and some of them were injured. The minor could suffer from autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and be a victim of bullying.
After the events, the aggressor was quickly located and transferred to the Jerez de la Frontera police station, where he will be kept in custody until the report is completed and made available to the Prosecutor’s Office.
According to the story of one of the attacker’s classmates, the student, a third-year ESO class C student, went “all angry” to the back of the class, where his backpack was, from which he took out “knives”. “Then he started harassing everyone, even the teacher, who he hurt in one eye. My friend was almost caught and another friend was injured in the forearm. And to my physics and chemistry teacher, in the head”, he explained.
This minor explained that the aggressor “is not a problematic boy, but he is always alone”. “We’ve been through a lot of fear”, recounted another of the now arrested’s colleagues who is also a third-year ESO student, but in a different class. “We heard screams, the teacher went out into the corridor and when she saw what was happening, she asked us to come down.” “When I left, I looked and saw how several teachers were holding back the boy, who was carrying two knives, one in each hand,” he explained.
At the moment, the reasons that triggered the attack are not known, although the minor, due to his age, could already be charged with a crime of assault. Some of his colleagues stated that the young man could suffer from some kind of mental disorder and indicated that he could have ASD, while others stated that the attacker could have been the victim of bullying the previous day.
In fact, classmates described an episode of bullying that happened on Wednesday, when someone threw a bottle of water at him, which could be the trigger for his violent attitude yesterday.
Apparently, only one of the students was concerned about the minor after this incident and, according to his account, the aggressor would have warned him not to go to class the next day. For its part, the school assured that it had no knowledge of these facts, while the Board affirms that there is no file open at this institute for assault on any student.
The mayor of the city, María José García-Pelayo, and the delegate of Education, José Ángel Aparicio, approached the scene. There the city’s bailiff condemned “the very serious events” and said that the National Police and the scientist are conducting a “detailed” investigation into the incident.
For their report, the ANPE unions, the majority in the education sector, and the STEs confederation requested yesterday more psychologists, nurses and guidance counselors in educational centers to attend to the diversity of students, especially , to their mental health.
