Two people were hospitalized with stab wounds, and one of them was in custody, after a brawl outside a middle school in Lake Balboa Thursday afternoon, authorities said.
The incident was reported shortly after 3:10 p.m. in the 17100 block of Vanowen Street, said Officer Tony Im with the Los Angeles Police Department.
A fight broke out in front of Mulholland Middle School after classes were done for the day, officials said.
Cellphone video shows a person holding a sharp object and yelling at a crowd of students, with the campus visible in the background. Then, a struggle broke out between several young people.
Mark Guerra, who witnessed the fight, said “one kid had two scissors in his hands” and used them to cut another minor.
L.A. school police said they received conflicting reports from multiple students, but ultimately determined that a boy seen with a sharp object was the aggressor.
The armed boy — who’s not a student at Mulholland or any L.A. Unified school — was hospitalized with injuries to his head and lacerations. Another person showed up at the hospital with lacerations, said LAUSD police Sgt. Rudy Perez.
LAPD’s Im had earlier said a boy about 12 or 13 years old was transported to the hospital in unknown condition, describing him as a victim. But Perez said that boy is now being considered a suspect, and he was being held on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.
The sergeant believes the incident was likely gang-related. The case remains under investigation, with police looking at several videos and interviewing witnesses.
The L.A. Unified school police expect to have a heightened law enforcement presence on campus Friday.
KTLA’s Matt Phillips contributed to this story.