High School Stabbing In Coatesville

Delaney Rice

Tuesday morning, 16 year old high school student, Oddell Cannon, committed attempted murder at Coatesville area Senior Highschool. Sophomore, Mickey Rayner, was stabbed nine times in the school bathroom around 7:30 am. After the incident, Mickey was taken to the Paoli hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries while Oddell fled the school. The school started dismissing other students while the authorities investigated the crime scene. Mickey Rayner’s mother talked to a reporter in the 6abc.com article concerning his health and injuries in the hospital. She said “He was stabbed in the neck, the arm, his side, and his back multiple times. (It) cut every muscle and tendon in his arm all the way down to the bone,” she said. “They are still observing because it did knick his colon, so they are watching to make sure that there is not a hole.” As of now, he is still in the hospital undergoing surgery. As for Cannon, he had turned himself in on Tuesday night after the authorities tried to locate him. After turning himself into the police he was relocated to Chester County Juvenile Detention Center after not posting a 75 thousand dollar bail. He was charged as an adult with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault, terroristic threats, possession of a weapon on school property, and other related charges. Students and parents here at Pottsgrove are starting to get nervous after this offense that happened so close to us and our school. They are worried if our school district is taking the proper steps to keep our students safe and parents are especially nervous since the uprise in school shootings recently. I talked to Mr. Shantz, a teacher, and parent of Pottsgrove and he stated “These events are absolutely devastating, and having a child in school and not knowing what incidents can happen at school makes me nervous. We do all of these safety drills to help us but we never know when something like this could happen”. I can predict many parents agree with this because we do our best using safety drills but we can never be 100 percent mentally or physically prepared for an event like this. I also asked a Student, Ethan Chambers, about what they thought and this was their response. “I believe that the people who commit school shootings or other offenses use that as an outlet for their anger and it is in no way acceptable. I think that people here in Pottsgrove are above that and will do the right thing other than resorting to terrorizing a whole school.” In all, the crime Shooting committed at Coatesville Area Senior High school is under control and Mickey is alive in the hospital and Odell is awaiting trial.