Community leaders and activists come together after stabbing of 15-year-old St. Paul student

Kristi Belcamino, Pioneer Press
·6 min read
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As the community came together to grieve a 15-year-old Harding High School student who was fatally stabbed Friday by a fellow student, a family member started a gofundme account to help with funeral expenses.

According to the page “Help Devins Family” created by Christopher Brown, the boy who was killed is named Devin.

Brown said his “baby brother” was stabbed twice in the chest and stomach during a fight at the school.

A 16-year-old Harding High School student is in custody in connection with the death. Officers responding to a 911 call about 11:45 a.m. Friday found employees at the East Side school giving first aid to a male student with stab wounds. Paramedics took the boy to Regions Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Authorities did not release any new information on the homicide investigation Saturday but did address rumors about videos circulating on social media that claim to have captured the stabbing.

“We cannot comment on the validity of any videos — if they are evidence or not — just as we would not discuss facts of the case as it’s an active investigation,” St. Paul Police Sgt. Mike Ernster said Saturday.

Authorities asked that anyone who believes they have video of the incident call investigators at 651-266-5650.

Videos claiming to capture the fight and stabbing incident show three students fist-fighting and a school employee approaching them and trying to break up the fight saying, “Stop, stop, stop!”

The boys break apart and flee down the hallway but then come back together for a brief moment, and someone shouts what sounds like “He’s got a knife!”

School resource officer

This is the third school year since the St. Paul school board, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis and against the advice of the high school principals, stopped paying for a police officer to be stationed at every high school. Now, school security is managed by unarmed school support liaisons who are employed and trained by the school district.

In separate shootings last month, a teen was seriously wounded outside a city recreation center near Central High School and a Washington Technology Magnet staff member was struck in the ear during an after-school skirmish. Following those incidents, school board member Chauntyll Allen asked for advice on Facebook about how to keep guns out of the schools, suggesting metal detectors could be part of the answer.

Two Harding High School students told the Pioneer Press on Friday they would feel safer with a police officer assigned to their school and metal detectors installed.

“I think there is a need for a conversation about what we need to do to keep our students safe and our faculty safe in our buildings,” Halla Henderson, a member of the St. Paul school board, said Saturday. “I actively fought against (school resource officers) and metal detectors in our buildings because they create a militarized system. It’s police in our buildings. It changes the culture of our buildings from one of learning to one of being watched and being targeted, but I do think we need to come together and see what it looks like to talk about safety and what do we do as leaders to make it safer for our students to thrive.”

Henderson noted that she had grown up in Minnesota and her school had police officers, and it never made her feel safer and didn’t prevent violent incidents.

“I understand why people are upset, and I know as a community we want to look for an easy solution,” Henderson said.

When asked if she remained opposed to SROs and metal detectors after some students openly said they want them, she said, “I’m open to talking to our students and faculty about what it is that they need. If that is the direction we feel is needed as a board or community we’ll move forward.”

The district last year was awarded a three-year, $994,000 STOP School Violence grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. It is to pay for the development of a violence prevention tool by, in part, examining the causes of violent incidents that took place last year in district schools.

Community meeting

Community members met Saturday afternoon at the 8218 Truce Center to discuss the stabbing death.

Tray Pollard, founder and CEO of We Push for Peace, said by working together he believed the community could implement “protective measures to prevent” incidents like the stabbing.

“We have a lot of issues in what should be the safest place for our kids to be,” he said. “And whatever we can do to combat that we will do.”

The Rev. Darryl Spence said when he walked into Harding High School after the stabbing Friday his eyes met those of others he knew who worked at the school and they all wept.

“We’re all crying,” Spence said. “The reason we’re crying is because we know we can do better.”

Spence said that even though he’s seen a lot of tough things in his work over the past 25 years, Friday’s stabbing “knocked me to my knees.”

“Today we need to stand for our children and we need to stop letting our child care think we don’t care for them,” Spence said. “We need to be together. We need action.”

Community activist Al Flowers said he is working to introduce legislation at the state level to “address the racial wealth inequalities experienced by Blacks across Minnesota.”

The United Black Legislative Agenda is a collaboration of The Urban League Twin Cities; Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Minnesota NAACP organizations; and the Stairstep Foundation/His Works United, a coalition of Black churches in the state.

Noting that Minnesota is ranked the seventh-worst state in the country for Blacks to live in, the proposed legislation, called The United Black Legislative Agenda, is asking for funding to address seven areas in the Black community: business and economic development, employment, public safety, housing, education, health and wellness, and setting public policy.

An “African American Lobby Day” will be held from 8 a.m. to noon on Friday, March 3 at the rotunda at the State Capitol to bring attention to the legislation. Those who want to help sponsor the event can email theyoungpeopletaskforcemn@gmail.com or call 612-701-8562.

The Rev. Richard Pittman of House of Praise Church in St. Paul spoke Saturday and said he was going to work behind the scenes to support the legislation in any way he could. He said children in the Black community need to have hope.

“We need to give them purpose. We need to give them excitement about their purpose. We need to make them believe that they can and they will,” Pittman said.

Food is love

Harding High School will be closed on Monday.

The Parent Advisory Council at St. Paul’s Central High School is raising money to have lunch sent to the Harding High School staff on Monday as “they gather and begin to grieve.”

“Our hearts are with the Harding community,” wrote member Sunny Kase. “The PAC did this for Central staff a few weeks ago and it really helped begin the healing process. It may seem like a small thing, but food is love.”

Donations for the lunch can be sent via PayPal to centralhspac@gmail.com. Checks can be sent to Central High School PAC, P.O. Box 40123, St. Paul, MN 55104 with “Harding” written on the memo line of the check.

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