Police: Middle school student apprehended after stabbing teacher

GWINNET COUNTY, Ga. - Police at a Gwinnett County middle school have taken a 13-year-old student into custody for stabbing a teacher with a butcher's knife at school.

Officials told FOX that the stabbing happened in a language arts classroom during a class change at Trickum Middle School on the 100 block of Killian Hill Road.

In an email Trickum Principal Ryan Queen told parents and guardians in an email sent out Monday afternoon. he said that the student reportedly called the teacher over and struck her with a 8-inch butcher's knife that he had in his bag.

"The student was immediately apprehended and all other students are safe," Queen said. "I am very thankful to our SRO for her handling of this situation, as well as to our teachers and students for their response.

Queen says the teacher, who teaches eighth-grade language arts, has been transported to a local hospital. She is breathing, conscious, and talking to first responders. Officials are now asking people to keep her in your prayers.

All other students and teachers are safe. Plans are in place to help the students who witness the incident cope with what they saw.

"We are taking steps tomorrow to ensure we can support our students and staff and to help them have as normal a school day as possible," Queen said.

They have not yet identified the student or the victim.

You can read the full message sent by Queen below.

Dear Trickum Middle School Parents/Guardians,

I want to follow up with you on my earlier communication to you about the incident that occurred today. I now have more details that I can share with you. We did take a 13 year old male student into custody today after he stabbed one of our 8th grade teachers. The student reportedly called the teacher over and then struck her in the chest area with an 8-inch butcher knife that he had in his bookbag. Help was called and while our SRO was responding to the room the young man grabbed another student. Our SRO was able to enter the classroom and disarm him without harm to anybody else. I am very thankful to our SRO for her handling of this situation, as well as to our teachers and students for their response.

Again, none of our students and no other staff members were hurt physically; however, we know that this has had an emotional toll on all of us. As part of our response, we are making personal calls to the families of students who were in the classroom during this incident. That said, we are taking steps tomorrow to ensure we can support our students and staff and to help them have as normal a school day as possible. We will have an additional police presence at school tomorrow to provide our students and staff with an additional sense of security and to calm any anxiety.

In addition, we are canceling our JA trip for our 8th grade students tomorrow and will be rescheduling for a future date. This will ensure we can provide our students and teachers the support they need. We will have additional counselors on site and I have asked all of our staff members to pay particular attention to our students' demeanor tomorrow so we can identify any students who may need to talk about this situation. We have never had a situation like this at our school and I know we all are concerned about this and the fact that one of our Trickum Middle family was hurt at the hands of a student is very upsetting.

I ask that you keep our teacher who was injured in your thoughts and prayers. In addition, we know this has touched our entire community--from our teachers who comforted our injured teacher and our other teachers who are concerned about their friend and co-worker to our students who may be anxious about this situation and parents who have understandable concerns.

I am including below this communication some information that our counselors provided that may be of use to all of us as we help our school community respond to this situation. As always, I appreciate your support of our students, staff, and school. Working together, we will help our community heal, knowing that Trickum Middle School is the greatest middle school in the nation.