The 14-year-old boy accused of stabbing a 16-year-old classmate at a Maryland high school Tuesday morning was fed up with relentless bullying, a student who witnessed the incident said.
The student who reportedly stabbed another teen tried to avoid a fight but defended himself when the other youth refused to back down, a student at Frederick Douglass High School in Upper Marlboro told NBC4.
"He told him to leave him alone and to get away, and that he didn't want to fight," the student said about the incident caught on cellphone video. NBC4 is protecting his identity.
"The kid who did the stabbing was trying to defend himself, then finally the knife made its appearance and the other student was stabbed. He didn't realize he was stabbed until later, and he kept hitting and hitting," the classmate said.
Alvin Butler of Bowie, Maryland said he created a program to help schools cope with bullying. Text 2 Stop It lets students anonymously report by text their problems with bullies.
"You ask them a question, 'How did it go today' and you get, "Good, fine,'" Butler said. ''If you want to find out what's going on, text them and then you'll see they're ready for conversation they wouldn't have verbally."
The program that costs $1.25 per student per year is in use in Queen Anne County schools, but Prince George's County schools turned it down.
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Prince George's County Schools spokeswoman Keesha Bullock said the schools already have a comprehensive system for dealing with bullying.
"We don't believe that we have a wide-spread problem, and we encourage people to report it as much as we can so we can take appropriate action," she said.
The student who was stabbed is recovering from his injuries. The accused stabber is being charged as a juvenile. NBC4 learned today that four additional students have been suspended for the rest of the school year because of their involvement in the incident.
The family of a 9-year-old girl in Landover, Maryland is suing Prince George's County for $10 million after a classmate beat her on a bus and the bus driver reportedly ignored little Saraia Collins' cries for help.
"When I see what's going on in the county and what's going on in the state, it doesn't have to be that way," Butler said.
