DETROIT – Parents and community members are demanding answers after a student was stabbed multiple times on Wednesday inside Gompers Elementary-Middle School, allegedly after a parent bypassed security with a knife.
The Detroit Public Schools Community District said the attack happened on Wednesday morning, when an alleged security breach allowed a parent to enter the school and hand a knife to her child, who then allegedly used it to stab another student.
Jazlyn Morgan, the young victim’s mother, described receiving a phone call that upended her week.
“To just to get that phone call from my child and it’s something, you know, this devastating, it’s been a very, very emotionally overwhelming week for us,” Morgan said.
Neighbors and parents voiced concern and frustration over how easily the weapon reached campus.
“What if it was a gun? It could have been a mass shooting,” said Rodney White, a nearby resident.
The student accused in the attack and that child’s mother have both been arrested, according to Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD). The district says the mother passed through security and metal detectors with the knife and handed it to the child.
Related: Parents demand answers after student is stabbed at Detroit elementary-middle school
The security guard on duty has been suspended pending an investigation.
Timothy Clark, a parent of two students at Gompers, questioned how the breach occurred when metal detectors are meant to screen entrants.
“The only reason this happened is the security guard allowed the mother to go in the school with the knife. I know it works because I go up there to pick up my kids. And if I have so much as a belt buckle on, or even this thing on my wrist, it beeps,” Clark said.
Classrooms were closed to students on Friday, as the district met with teachers and staff to discuss the attack and next steps. DPSCD officials also held a virtual meeting with parents on Thursday to provide updates.
DPSCD Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti told parents that safety protocols were not implemented the way they should have been. He outlined immediate steps the district plans to take to strengthen safety at Gompers.
Planned measures include assigning a full-time police officer to campus, increasing security staff to three guards, adding central office personnel on site, bolstering mental health support for students who witnessed the attack, and increasing oversight of metal detector use.
The district also said it will expand resources for student intervention and follow up directly with witnesses.
“Do your job. Make sure the security team that you’re hiring is going to do their job as well,” Morgan said. “We send our kids to school knowing that they are going to come back to us. It’s school. That’s a place, like home -- so you expect the school to do everything they can to protect your children while they’re there.”
Students are scheduled to return to the Gompers campus on Monday, Oct. 13. Members of the Detroit Task Force on Black Male Engagement plan to welcome students back with a school “Welcome Clap-In” to show community support.