Community calls for change following deadly stabbing at Harding HS

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - St. Paul community members gathered for an emergency meeting on Saturday, one day after a St. Paul Harding High School student was killed at school.

"We have lost control of our community, that sense of a village," Miki Frost said. "We all knew each other, cared about each other, respected each other, those days are gone."

On Friday, community leaders say a 10th grader got into a fight with a classmate, and it turned deadly. People in the building at the time say the two students involved had a complicated history, and the situation escalated because one was armed with a knife.

"This young brother last night did not deserve to lose his life," Miki Frost said. "That was his very first day going there, and he lost his life on his first day."

"Kids are not going to class. They’re going to the bathroom to get high. There’s weapons all throughout that school I know that," another man added. "Guns and knives are all around."

Saturday’s urgent community conversation was held inside Miki Frost’s Truce Center, a place he created to mentor kids in the community and resolve disputes among them.  Leaving the meeting, community leaders are now pushing for increased community patrols in and around the schools, "Stand outside of the school, stand out in front of the school, let’s start patrolling around," Frost ended.

Next, the group plans to show up at the next school board meeting to lay out their plans to keep students safe.