The stabbing happened just before 8 a.m. Tuesday at Bolingbrook High School.
The soft lockdown, as it's called, lasted for about two hours, from 7:30, at the start of school, to about 9:30 am. It was a safety precaution enacted even though school officials felt no other students were in danger after the stabbing.
Students poured out of Bolingbrook High School at the end of the school day, which started with all students under a soft lockdown, literally locked in their classrooms while teachers continued with their lesson plans. The soft lockdown was activated after a 15-year-old male student was stabbed several times in a fight with a 16-year-old boy minutes before school started Tuesday morning. It's an incident the police say is gang related.
"This is particularly common [at] any large suburban, urban high school in the country," said James Mitchen, Bolingbrook H.S. principal.
One of the nearly 100 security cameras in the school caught the two students enter a bathroom where the stabbing took place. The victim ran bleeding out of the school. Police spotted him and took him to nearby Adventist Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery. A family friend, who did not want to be identified, said that the victim is doing OK.
"He's doing fine. So, I mean, he's not in any type of major danger right now," said the victim's friend.
The offender also ran away from the school to his house, where he was taken into custody.
Police say the stabbing stems from an incident off campus Monday when the students exchanged gang signs. Students say they do notice a gang presence at the school.
"You can see it going around, a lot of their hats tilted and whatever. But, you know, they really don't bring it around school," said Nick Bade, student.
School officials sent out letters Tuesday about the incident to parents, principals and other Bolingbrook district schools.
