SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KRON) — Two students were stabbed by another student inside an art class at Montgomery High School on Wednesday, the Santa Rosa Police Chief said. One of the students, a 16-year-old boy, died in a hospital soon after the classroom fight, the police chief said.
The victim has been identified as 16-year-old Jayden Pienta, KRON4 has confirmed.
Classes at Montgomery High School were canceled for the rest of the week and the campus will be closed.
The Santa Rosa Police Department’s 911 communications center was notified about the fight at 11:11 a.m. Some of the 911 callers included students. Police officers arrived on campus four minutes later.
Police Chief John Cregan said the investigation revealed that two 16-year-old juniors entered the art classroom to instigate a fight with a 15-year-old freshman. Twenty-seven students, one teacher, and three teaching aides were inside the classroom at the time. The two juniors were not part of the class, he said.
“They entered the classroom and engaged in a physical altercation with the (freshman). All three of them are male students here at the campus,” Cregan said.
Teachers broke up the fight. But moments later, the fight reignited and the freshman pulled out a knife, Cregan said. The 5-inch-long knife was described as a switchblade.
The freshman stabbed one junior three times in the chest, and stabbed the other junior once in the hand, according to the police chief. The two stabbed students fled out of the classroom to the nurse’s office. Cregan said they were “alert and conscious” when police arrived and transported them to a local hospital.
“Unfortunately, one of the students … passed away at that hospital,” Cregan said. “The other student is being treated for his injuries and is expected to survive.”
Thirty-six SRPD officers flooded the high school’s campus, but the student armed with the knife slipped away. Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office deputies and a sheriff’s helicopter were called in for mutual aid.
Witnesses helped police find the freshman hiding next to a church in a creek near Highway 12 and Farmers Lane. He was unarmed and officers arrested him, Cregan said. Officers are still scouring the area looking for the knife.
Some students said they felt scared and unsafe because of how school administrators and law enforcement handled the incident. The school went into lockdown. One student said no one knew if the killer was going to return to the school or not.
Police said the freshman was found and taken into custody at 11:51 a.m. The school’s lockdown was not lifted until after the boy was found, police said.
A reunification location for students and parents was established on the Montgomery High School football field. All students were eventually allowed to evacuate from the campus.
Montgomery High School, located at 1250 Hahman Drive, does not have a SRPD School Resource Officer. The police chief said, “It’s really important to understand that the Santa Rosa Police Department did not remove the SROs from the school campus. That was a decision by the Santa Rosa school board.”
Without an SRO on Wednesday, teachers tried in vain to break up the fight before the stabbing.
Cregan said the three students involved had previous physical altercations. “We are going to get to the bottom about the motive of this, what led up to this,” he said.
Some Montgomery High School students attended Wednesday afternoon’s news conference held by the police chief and school district superintended. Still grappling with the death of their peer, students were visibly emotional.
A Montgomery High senior shouted, “The school needs to be held accountable. Hear my voice. My little brother goes to this school. A student had to call 911, nobody else did. The school knew that these two had problems beforehand.”
School district superintendent Anna Trunnell said. “This is truly a sad day. The tragedy that happened here today is heartbreaking. Right now our focus is on meeting the immediate physical and emotional needs of our students and staff. Our campus followed emergency protocols in order to keep students and staff safe.”
This is a developing story.
