3 students stabbed, Pa. school evacuated

updated 3:43 p.m. ET Jan. 9, 2008

READING, Pa. - Three students were stabbed Wednesday morning at a high school by an angry student who had a canister of propane when confronted by school administrators, school and police officials said.

Police arrested the student at Antietam Middle-Senior High School after school officials disarmed the boy. Students were evacuated.

Principal James Snyder said he and a teacher were responding to a disturbance when they confronted the student, who held them at bay with the canister.

"He was very upset with the school and with all the people who were in the school at that particular time," Snyder said.

When the boy would not surrender, a teacher swatted the student's arm, knocking the canister from his hand, Snyder said.

"We pushed him to the wall and kept him to a confined area so he wasn't going anywhere," Snyder said. "He wasn't saying anything to us."

Students treated and released
A 16-year-old girl was taken to Reading Hospital with cuts to both hands, hospital spokesman William J. Rudolph Jr. said. Doctors also treated a 15-year-old girl with a small wound to her upper back and a 14-year-old boy with a small wound to his upper right arm, he said. All three were released, Rudolph said.

Jim Greager, 14, said he was in a hallway when he saw another student running down the hall screaming, "Help! Help! Help!"

"People were crying; they were scared. Everyone was calling parents on cell phones. Rumors started flying," said Brian Macluskie, 15.

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