A recent knife-related incident at a local high school won’t lead to teachers searching backpacks, says an education officer.
Thunder Bay Police Service officers arrested a 17-year-old man at his home and charged him with assault with a weapon and uttering threats. Police say the incident took place Tuesday afternoon during an argument between a male and a female student at Hammarskjold High School.
A third student approached the pair, pulled a knife and threatened the girl.
A short time later, the second male student again approached the girl and made another threat.
Charlie Bishop, an education officer with Lakehead Public Schools, said they are following Safe Schools Guidelines and are disciplining the student.
He added that the board does the best it can to make sure schools are a safe place for students and incidents like this are rare occurrences.
“When there’s information about a possible weapon in the school we deal with that immediately but in terms of recognition we’re going to be searching backpacks or things like that as a regular occurrence that’s not something that we do,” Bishop said.
“These are situations we deal with rarely but we act on quickly. In this situation we were given the information and we acted on it.”
