Students returning to West Potomac High School Thursday morning voiced concerns about safety after a stabbing seriously injured a teen.
A newly installed weapons detector could be seen at the entrance of the school less than 24 hours after the stabbing that injured a 16-year-old student Wednesday morning. There were also more police officers present at the school.
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WATCH HERESome students told News4 they don't feel safe after the stabbing.
"I was telling my mom that this morning. I was like, 'I don’t even feel safe no more.' We used to have surveys and stuff saying … do you feel safe? I was, like, yeah. But now I don't feel safe," said Jaziah Fells-Ware, a freshman at the school. "Like, I don't want to sit here and fear and have to turn my back every corner because I feel like something's gonna happen."
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SIGN UP Ian Bradshaw, a senior, said he saw the injured student after he collapsed. He felt strange coming back to school so soon.
"It was pretty traumatic. Seeing that in school just, like, really woke me up to a lot of things," he said.
"I feel like security should’ve responded a lot faster. I feel like we didn’t feel safe for a really long time and, despite what they were trying to tell us, it just didn’t feel that way."
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Fairfax County Public Schools is in the process of rolling out a weapons detector pilot program, but there was no such device at West Potomac High School on Wednesday. Police said they later found the knife the 15-year-old suspect allegedly used during a fight.
On Thursday morning, students were screened as they entered the building.
Some had mixed feelings about whether or not it would make a difference.
"I think it will have a stronger impact, though, with people being like since there is this there, I can't do this and that. But I feel like there's always somebody who's just gonna do something stupid one day," senior Micah Thomas said.
The school is operating on a normal schedule Thursday.
Counselors are at the school to talk to students who might need help processing their feelings about what happened.
