Bullying is no excuse for stabbing your fellow classmates, but it may have played a role in 16-year-old Alex Hribal’s “stabbing spree” at Franklin Regional High School in Pennsylvania.
Hribal has since been charged with four counts of attempted murder and 21 counts of aggravated assault.
On Wednesday, according to a CNN report, Hribal ran down the hallways with two kitchen knives, stabbing 20 students and a security guard before the assistant principal tackled him. Many of the victims hadn’t realized they’d been stabbed.
“They just felt pain and noticed they were bleeding,” an emergency doctor said. “Almost all of them said they didn’t see anyone coming at them. It apparently was a crowded hallway and they were going about their business, and then just felt pain and started bleeding.”
Oren Dorell with USA Today quotes a classmate that claims she knew of bullying or teasing: “I’d witnessed people say things to him. I couldn’t tell you who said. I didn’t realize it was all that bad. They just said things. They’d ride him and ride him, and today was the day that he snapped.”