A 52-year-old man was charged with murder after a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death outside her high school in central California Monday morning, authorities said.
The stabbing happened outside Stagg High School in Stockton, California, authorities said. The department said the stabbing appeared to be a “random act”.
Stockton police said in a Facebook post Monday night that a suspect, later identified as Anthony Gray, had been arrested, charged and placed in the San Joaquin County jail.
Officer Joe Silva, a spokesman for the Stockton Police Department, said by phone Monday that authorities were trying to figure out why the student was being targeted. It was not clear if the man had a previous relationship with the student, officer Silva added.
The student, whose name was not immediately released, was standing at the entrance to Stagg High School just after 11 a.m. when a man pulled into the school grounds, parked and then stabbed her multiple times, police said.
She was taken to a hospital, where she died, John Ramirez Jr., the Stockton Unified School District superintendent, said at a news conference outside the school Monday afternoon.
The inspector credited a school district police officer who had been present to prevent the attack from “continuing”.
mr. Gray, who appears to be from Stockton according to Officer Silva, was later taken into custody.
The high school in Stockton, a town of about 300,000 residents 40 miles south of Sacramento, was locked after the attack, school officials said. The district said classes would resume as usual on Tuesday morning.
Eduardo Medina and Mike Ives reporting contributed.
