Two students were stabbed by a classmate in a Queens high school stairwell Thursday afternoon, police said.
A 17-year-old student was stabbed in the shoulder while the other, also 17, was wounded in the abdomen inside Martin Van Buren High School on Hillside Ave. near 230th St. in Queens Village about 1:20 p.m., cops said.
“I was trying to walk my girlfriend to her class and as we got to the staircase we saw them get in an altercation,” a 14-year-old student told the Daily News. “These two boys had an altercation. One of them way losing bad and he pulled out a knife and stabbed [the other one].”
A gun, possibly fake or a pellet gun, was recovered that belonged to one of the victims, school safety sources said.
One victim was initially listed in critical condition, but both boys are now considered stable, cops said.
A 17-year-old boy was arrested and charged with criminal possession of a weapon, police said. It wasn’t immediately clear if the teen was the victim and his name was not released due to his age.
Two other people were taken into custody and charges against them were pending Thursday night, according to cops.
“NYPD immediately responded to an incident at the school and are currently investigating,” said Jenna Lyle, a spokeswoman for the public schools.
Students were put into a soft lockdown that had been lifted by 3 p.m., according to education officials.
A “soft” lockdown means there’s no imminent danger, per Education Department policy. Students are trained to move out of sight and keep silent and teachers check the hallway for students, lock classroom doors and turn off the lights.
The school is a non-scanning school with cameras in the building, school safety sources said.
A parent of a student at the school told The News she was not notified of the incident until after students were dismissed for the day.
“That’s too late, that’s too late for the parents,” said Anne O’Reilly, who has a 10th-grade daughter. “They should let parents know as it’s happening.”
O’Reilly described security at the school as “very bad.”
“They need metal detectors,” the shaken mother said. “There should be metal detectors.”
So far this school year, authorities say they have recovered fewer weapons.
They’ve taken 3,172 weapons, a decrease of 9.8% compared to the same time frame last year, according to cops.
Schools saw a slight increase in felonies during the first four months of the academic year — 112, compared to 95 the same time frame the previous year — according to the Mayor’s Management Report. Most of that increase was driven by stealing school property, like computers and calculators, or people’s personal belongings, and still remains around pre-pandemic levels.
