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Update: Murray Co Student Arrested for Holding Classmate at Knife Point

1,137 views · Published 1 October 2012 · 2:38 · Indexed 29 October 2026

Channel: WTVC NewsChannel 9 · 2012 · News & Politics

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by John Madewell  A Murray County High school student held another student at knifepoint this morning inside a classroom, according to the victim and Murray County Sheriff's Office investigators. The school went on lockdown for about an hour.Haley Jones, the 17-year-old victim, described what happened, "Then all of a sudden, he has his hands around my neck with these two knives held up against my neck."Jones said she talked to the 14-year-old boy for the first time yesterday. He scared her when he bear-hugged her from behind, then finally released her.Her mother told her teacher about the incident, her teacher made sure Jones sat away from the boy and closer to her.But this morning, Jones and investigators say he approached again from behind, this time with a steak knife in each hand. "I was scared, I was devastated, I was like is this really happening. I didn't believe like this was happening to me."She said her teacher grabbed the boy's wrists, another student grabbed the knives and her friend helped pull her out from underneath his arms.When she broke free, Jones's teacher told her to push the panic button. As she ran out of the classroom, Jones followed her teacher's instructions. "I spotted the panic button first before my friend did and I pushed it like a bunch and just took off out the door." But she said nothing happened, "No, it didn't work."NewsChannel 9 asked Mike Tuck, Murray County School's Director of Administrative Services, about the panic button. Tuck said, "It will be looked into and repaired or fixed, certainly we'll do that."Meanwhile, Jones ran for the closest help. She found an assistant principal who reached a school resource officer by radio. The officer rushed to the classroom and found the teenager seated. Officer Dennis Ditman detained him, searched him and placed him under arrest.The sheriff's office charged the boy with aggravated assault, bringing a weapon to school and disrupting a school. He is expected to be placed into the Youth Detention Center in Dalton.This is the second weapons related incident to happen in Murray County Schools within the past two weeks. On September 11, investigators say a 16-year-old student had a loaded sawed-off shotgun in his pants on the bus ride home. The teenager was a student at Mountain Creek Academy, an alternative school in Eton. Other students on the bus noticed the gun and alerted a bus monitor. That led to a call to the Sheriff's Office who were waiting at the next stop, Bagley Middle School.At that school, deputies boarded the bus and got the other students off the bus. They were able to get the loaded 20-gauge shotgun from the teenager without incident. Tuck said the school system has not considered installing metal detectors, which could produce a threatening environment. He views the two incidents as isolated. Tuck said, "I think it's an aberration, we want to protect our students but at the same time we want to have a environment that's conducive to learning." Meanwhile, the Sheriff's Office and school system are conducting investigations to determine how the 14-year-old boy got the steak knives into the school.

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