Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Sev­er­al stu­dents of Gas­par­il­lo Com­pos­ite School have told po­lice they re­ceived death threats af­ter a fra­cas out­side the school last Thurs­day, which left one stu­dent fight­ing for his life and sev­er­al oth­ers in­jured. This de­vel­op­ment is the lat­est in a se­ries of in­ci­dents at the trou­bled school which is plagued by stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline and has twice been the tar­get of ar­son at­tempts. Po­lice said they be­lieved that a teen be­ing sought for ques­tion­ing in con­nec­tion with the stab­bing of stu­dent Mic­ah Savary, who is in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal, has gone in­to hid­ing.

Of­fi­cers vis­it­ed the boy's home twice since the in­ci­dent last Thurs­day but have not been able to lo­cate him. Over the past few days, more than a dozen stu­dents have been in­ter­viewed in con­nec­tion with the stab­bing which oc­curred close to King's Bar, Gas­par­il­lo. The fight left four stu­dents in­jured. Savary, of St Mar­garet's Vil­lage, Clax­ton Bay, suf­fered a punc­ture wound to his chest and is fight­ing for his life at the In­ten­sive Care Unit of San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. An­oth­er stu­dent, An­der­son Guer­ra, who was al­so stabbed in the melee, was dis­charged from the San Fer­nan­do hos­pi­tal over the week­end. Two oth­er stu­dents, Ke­ston An­toine and Elan Thomas, who suf­fered in­juries to their ear and eye re­spec­tive­ly, are re­cov­er­ing at home.

The main sus­pect gave a state­ment to of­fi­cials at the Gas­par­il­lo Com­pos­ite School short­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent but po­lice have not been able to lo­cate him since. Prin­ci­pal of the em­bat­tled school, Samuel Bowen, said sus­pen­sions had not helped to re­duce stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline. Just a week be­fore the stab­bing, a pupil was sus­pend­ed for set­ting fire to a dust­bin at the school. School of­fi­cials, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said some stu­dents were un­ruly and had no re­spect for au­thor­i­ty.

Over the past few years, two fires were ma­li­cious­ly set on the com­pound. On one oc­ca­sion, teach­ers saved the build­ing from burn­ing down by start­ing a buck­et brigade. Of­fi­cials of the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry are ex­pect­ed to vis­it the school to­day to speak with stu­dents. Po­lice said once in­ves­ti­ga­tions were com­plet­ed, charges of ma­li­cious wound­ing or at­tempt­ed mur­der would be laid, pend­ing di­rec­tives from se­nior of­fi­cers. The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry has al­ready re­ceived a pre­lim­i­nary re­port on the stab­bing and of­fi­cials are now await­ing a more de­tailed re­port.