DETROIT – A mom and her 13-year-old daughter are facing charges after a student was stabbed at a Detroit elementary-middle school last week, officials said.
Lacara Anita Parks, 37, has been charged with two misdemeanors, including contributing to the delinquency of a minor and possession of a weapon in a weapons-free school zone.
Her 13-year-old daughter has been charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm and possession of a weapon in a weapons-free school zone.
The charges stem from a stabbing that happened at about 8:40 a.m. on Oct. 8 at Gompers Elementary-Middle School, which is located in the 14400 block of Burt Road.
Parks is accused of giving her daughter a pocketknife while on school grounds, “to use if she needed to defend herself on the way home from school,” according to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.
A short time after that, her daughter allegedly stabbed another 13-year-old student multiple times, injuring her.
Related: Parents demand answers after student is stabbed at Detroit elementary-middle school
In a social media post, the victim’s mother said her daughter was stabbed in her head, back, and arm, and was cut from neck to ear.
The victim’s mother told Local 4 that the stabbing happened after another altercation that took place on Monday.
The woman and her daughter were arrested on Wednesday.
The daughter’s preliminary hearing was held before Referee Leslie Graves in the Wayne County Criminal Justice Center on Oct. 9, and she was issued a $10,000 cash/surety bond.
She was also ordered to have no contact with the victim or any other Gompers students if released. The teen also can’t possess any knives.
Parks is set to be arraigned in 36th District Court, but the time for that hearing hasn’t been scheduled yet.
Classes at the school were canceled after the stabbing. Community members gathered on Monday, Oct. 13, as students returned to school.
The school’s assistant principal has been placed on leave while the school district continues an internal review of the stabbing, Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti said.
The leave is part of a preliminary review into whether established safety protocols were followed on the day of the attack.
“This case illustrates that a lot of things went wrong on many levels and as a result a child was stabbed,” said Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. “It’s unacceptable. We can do so much better than this for our children.”