Durham Regional Police reported six students and two teachers (another news source reports three teachers) were injured in the attacks that sent four of the injured to the hospital, one of them with serious injuries.
None of the injuries were considered life-threatening. Police say the attacks appeared to be random in nature with no particular student or teacher being targeted. Police were called to the school about 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time for reports of a stabbing inside the school.
Durham Regional Police said in a statement the teenager brought two knives to school and “started attacking students in the hallways,” before two staff members were able to locate her and hold her down until police arrived, according to CTV News.
The student was placed under arrest, and at this time, charges are pending. The student’s name is being withheld under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
CBC reports the school administration said in a statement that classes will resume on Wednesday and commended the staff and students for their “great leadership, courage and co-operation.”
Dunbarton High School is located in Pickering, Ontario, a city of 94,000 people east of Toronto. The school, on Sheppard Avenue near Whites Road, remained in lockdown for several hours as police went from classroom to classroom looking for witnesses to the attacks. Students who didn’t see anything were allowed to go home and the lockdown was lifted around 10 a.m.
The Guelph Tribune reports that one 14-year-old girl said she came face-to-face with the attacker, who began to slash at her with the knives. “I just ran for my life,” the girl said as she sobbed. “I just can’t believe it happened. She almost got me.”
Zakyr Rhemtulla, a 9th-grade student at Dunbarton, said in a telephone interview with the Guelph Tribune that as soon as he opened the door to go in the school, he saw students running. “I’m like ‘oh, what’s happening?'” he said. “So I just kept on walking and some teacher told me, ‘oh, come into this room.’ So I ran into the room. They locked the door, closed the curtains, turned the lights off.”
