Student's throat cut at Southern Nash High

Bailey, N.C. — A 16-year-old girl at Southern Nash High School was injured Tuesday morning when, authorities say, another girl cut her throat with a scalpel.

Capt. Pat Joyner, with the Nash County Sheriff's Office, said the 15-year-old student suspect approached the girl from behind during a class change and attacked her.

A school resource officer took the 15-year-old suspect into custody, and she was later charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury.

Her name was not released.

The victim, Jasmine Barnes, was taken to Wilson Memorial Hospital in Wilson and later transferred to Vidant Medical Center in Greenville to be treated for her injuries, including her thyroid which was cut during the attack.

"Hopefully, when we get to Greenville, I pray, that the doctors intervene and do what they're supposed to and take care of my baby," Barnes' mother, Stephanie Barnes said.

Stephanie Barnes said she did not know what might have prompted the attack. She called it "senseless and heartless."

"Kids should know how to act, regardless," she said. Get someone. Read. Pray, and stop doing all this violence to one another. It's just crazy."

Principal Connie Bobbitt said the suspect "had an issue" with the victim, but police said it's unclear if they had any previous altercations.

The school was on lockdown briefly after the stabbing, and teachers were instructed to keep children in the classrooms, Bobbitt said. The school is back on schedule.

"I let the parents know as soon as I could what was going on and that the two students were taken care of," she said. "Our staff responded in a Southern Nash way, and they responded very well."

It was the second time in less than a week that sheriff's deputies were called out to Southern Nash High.

Last Thursday, deputies received a report that two people were fighting with a broken bottle and a gun.

The school was locked down for 10 minutes, and deputies said it turned out that a 17-year-old was trying to harm himself with a piece of glass.

Bobbitt said the two incidents aren't related.

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Latest Comments

Honestly this is getting kinda old! I hear about this everyday at school and for people to say that it's the teacher or administrators fault, well guess what your wrong! Teacher sare payed to teach and educated kids not babysit and deal with drama! Yes they are supposed to dealwitty situations like thist in a certain manner and keep the students safe but not know who has a problem with who! At SNHS our #1 policy on our matrice is "Be Safe". It's the students job to help keep our school safe and the teachers/administrators job to over see that it is! So stop blaming this all on them! I'm safer at school b/c I know there's people there that have a main goal of keep all students safe!!

grantsherrod
March 22, 2012 7:55 p.m.

Everyone keeps stating how it's the parents fault, it's the schools fault, it's the central office's fault, but let's face it. Everyone she comes in contact with "let her down"; whether it be a single mom that works 2 jobs to support her child, or the principal's fault for not intervening, or the teachers fault for not realizing there was a problem & send her to the school counselor, her friends that didn't go down the right path so she would ...There is plenty of blame to go around but what good will that do? Yes, she should absolutely know right from wrong and she should absolutely be punished for her crime. But, I don't think that any one person is at fault for this child's (as yes, she's still a child) wrong doing ...

We should not judge unless we know the WHOLE story. And, no, I don't believe she should be tried as an adult. She's 15 years old! One mistake and she pays the consequences for the rest of her life? Do what needs to be done to punish a 15 year old for this terr

mjoyner3
March 22, 2012 10:17 a.m.

gobluesubygo said: "Never would have happened when I was a kid (and I'm only 27)."

Well, I'm 40, and it DID happen when I was a kid. My high school had assaults, thefts, bullying, even violence against teachers (one was poisoned by a student putting chemicals into her coffee cup in class). And I lived in a small town, not a big city with a lot of crime. There are always going to be problem kids, there always have been, always will be. The movie "Blackboard Jungle" came out in 1955. You can't extrapolate to a whole school, or a whole generation, based on a few screwed up kids.

newsmonkey
March 22, 2012 9:19 a.m.

'Maybe parenting skills today need to be looked at.'

couple thinks i have noticed:

1. teenager has kid, grandma raises baby (same grandma that had the teenager who got pregnant, so with that logic, the same person that raised a pregnant teen is passing down the same parenting style to another generation and the cycle continues).

2. the friend-parent was probably a parent who had authoritative/disciplinarian parents and professed to be a different type of parent who will let the child basically run the show.

jg01
March 22, 2012 8:55 a.m.

1st of all, the student did NOT have a broken bottle or a gun so get your facts straight before posting it! Second, I am a witness of Mrs. Bobbit's actions, and they were appropriate as well as the staff's so stop saying its her fault. Prayer does need to be put back in schools. PUT THE TROUBLESOME KIDS IN A REFORM SCHOOL. THose students are hindering the students who actually want to be educated and want to get somewhere in life. Rocky Mount HIgh has these occurences everyday and SOuthern is ridiculed for it? Just because 2 students out of 1300 made bad decisions SHOULD NOT define the school. So unless you know the real story, keep your mouth SHUT. It's not your story to talk about and should not be top news. Southern is the BEST school in Nash-Rocky Mount School System and ALWAYS will be. Mrs. Bobbit is a great leader and unless you have been in her shoes STOP talking about her.

skittlesbritt1
March 21, 2012 6:14 p.m.