Santa Rosa student, 16, fatally stabbed in Montgomery High School classroom; 2nd student injured

The 15-year-old Montgomery High School freshman was in art class Wednesday morning, just 11 minutes after 11 a.m.

In a flash, two juniors at the Santa Rosa school burst into the classroom and began fighting with the boy.

The teacher and three staff members rushed to stop the fight, which erupted in front of 27 other students. Moments later, the fight resumed and the freshman retaliated, pulling out a folding knife with a 4- to 5-inch blade, police said.

As students watched in horror, one of the older students, 16, was stabbed in the upper body three times. He died after initially being treated on the campus and taken to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, police said.

The other upperclassman, also 16, was stabbed in his left hand and also was taken to Memorial Hospital.

Leer este artículo en español aquí.

The 15-year-old boy who police said wielded the knife raced from the classroom and was found 40 minutes later about a mile north of campus. He was taken into custody without incident.

“This is truly a sad day,” Santa Rosa City Schools Superintendent Anna Trunnell said in an afternoon news conference about four hours after the incident. Santa Rosa Police Chief John Cregan was at her side.

“The tragedy that happened here today is heartbreaking,” Trunnell said.

Later Wednesday evening, Principal Adam Paulson sent a message to parents, students and the school community announcing the campus would remain closed Thursday. He called the outbreak of violence “the darkest day anyone can remember at Montgomery High.”

Police late Wednesday identified the deceased victim as Jayden Jess Pienta, 16, of Santa Rosa.

The fatal stabbing was the first on-campus slaying of a Sonoma County student in at least a generation.

Cregan, the Santa Rosa police chief, said the attack unfolded in quick succession inside the full art classroom on Santa Rosa’s second oldest high school campus, home to about 1,700 students.

It began shortly before an 11:11 a.m. 911 call to police, when the two older students barged into the classroom to confront the 15-year-old boy, he said.

Santa Rosa officers were on scene within four minutes of the 911 call, Cregan said. The involved students had some history of previous altercations, he said.

The campus was placed on lockdown, along with eight other schools in the vicinity.

The students injured in the attack made their way to the school’s front office, Cregan said, where a school nurse “engaged” with them.

“Both the students were alert and conscious and were providing initial statements,” Cregan said. “Our medical staff arrived here on the scene and quickly started treating the students and they were transported to a local hospital.”

For the more badly injured boy, the initial medical treatment involved a “chest seal,” Cregan said. He did not say how much time elapsed before he was taken to the hospital.

Tips from witnesses led to the suspect being located about 11:51 p.m. in the area of Santa Rosa Creek behind St. Eugene Cathedral School at the corner of Montgomery Drive and Farmers Lane.

“Our officers scoured that area and were able to locate a 15-year-old juvenile who was hiding in the creek bed there, who was laying down on his stomach, trying to conceal himself,” he said.

The officers “were safely able to take this young man into custody,” Cregan said.

No knife was found in his possession or in the vicinity, he said, adding that officers are still searching for the weapon. The student was arrested on suspicion of homicide, attempted homicide, bringing a weapon on campus and assault on a school campus.

His name was withheld because he is a minor.

Santa Rosa police Sgt. Christopher Mahurin, the department spokesperson, said the altercations happened in the same room within a short amount of time. He said he did not know who instigated the ensuing fight after the first was broken up.

Santa Rosa’s middle and high schools do not have campus-based officers following a controversial decision by the district school board in 2020 not to renew the suspended Santa Rosa police program.

Asked about other measures in place at Montgomery and districtwide, Trunnell, the district chief said: “We don't have any metal detectors here or at any of our schools. We do talk regularly to our students about safety and caring for each other on campus."

Mahurin said the police department had received 97 calls for response from the school in the past 12 months. There were 945 calls for police response for all Santa Rosa schools in 2022, he said.

Up to 36 officers responded to the Montgomery High campus, Cregan said. Police blocked roads in the area as students remained locked in classrooms. Hundreds also were gathered on the campus football field.

Classes were canceled after noon and parents were summoned to reunite with their kids.

Some of the parents had been waiting there for hours, checking their phones, asking police officers what was going on.

Students checked their phones and scanned the crowd of family members waiting for them. Other students walked in groups, making a beeline for their cars.

Some emerged from the lockdown in tears.

Cameron Gonzalez, 15, found his mom and hugged her for a long time.

He had been in the front office when a student came in saying he was stabbed, his mother said.

“I’m worried for him and what he saw and heard,” Amy Gonzales said.

Hours after the attack, Cynthia Padilla, 17, remained shaken.

Padilla said when they first went into lockdown she thought it was a drill. Then she found out that someone she knew had been hurt.

Her mom, Adriana Lopez, said she’s always felt that her kids were safe at the high school. Her sense of security is now shattered, she said.

Monica Carpenito, 40, had been grocery shopping with the woman she takes care of when her daughter, who is a senior, messaged her saying the school was on lockdown. Her daughter told her she was safe, tucked in a corner on campus — she knew two students were hurt.

Carpenito’s two other kids, students at Village Elementary School, also were on lockdown at their campus.

Carpenito rushed from work to check on her “babies.”

“Your mind is just ‘get to the kids,’” she said.

Jamie Katz, 45, said she calls the school every morning to make sure her son, who is a freshman, gets to classes. She said at one point the school was a comfort zone for her.

“Now I don’t even know if they’re safe at school,” she said.

The press conference Wednesday drew sharp questions from Montgomery High students concerned about safety issues.

Why, asked Montgomery High School senior Harley Rodgers, had it taken a death on campus to receive attention from officials?

“I think it’s important to remember that the Santa Rosa Police Department did not remove the community resource officers from your campus,” Cregan responded. “That was a decision by the Santa Rosa City School board.”

He called an end to the press conference moments later, just as students lobbed a flurry of additional questions. Cregan, Trunnell, Sonoma County Superintendent of Schools Amie Carter and Santa Rosa Mayor Natalie Rogers abruptly left the podium area and were ushered into a classroom.

“I was fuming watching the superintendent and other officials walk offstage this afternoon,” student body member Joey Browser said. “As members of our student body we're asking for important answers to why our school has not gotten the attention that it needs. I would have expected our Superintendent Anna Trunnell to acknowledge the asks for help.”

Ava Parmelee, a Montgomery High student body leader, said she and a few other students were at home trying to calm down after the events that unfolded Wednesday.

“We were scared,” she said, adding that when the lockdown alarms sounded off, they couldn't pull the blinds down all the way in her classroom and the windows wouldn't open if they needed to escape.

Those concerns, about aging campus facilities, echo issues recently raised in a Press Democrat story.

Officials said the stabbing occurred in a classroom on the north side of campus and police haven’t determined where the two 16-year-olds were supposed to be at the time.

Investigators are still trying to determine what precipitated the altercation. Cregan said the students had been involved in several altercations over the past few weeks.

Mahurin said the freshman was the only one armed during the fight but police haven’t determined where he kept the knife or why he had it.

“We don’t know if he had it because he was concerned for his own safety,” Mahurin said.

There were no injuries to the students and staff who were present during the stabbing.

Mahurin didn’t have the exact number of evacuees, but said it was a normal day of school and classes were full.

Parents continued to pick up their children four hours after the stabbings. A handful of parents and students stuck around to address authorities during the news conference.

Before Wednesday, the most recent serious act of violence at a local campus took place in 2019, when a student at Ridgway High School was arrested after he reportedly shot a classmate feet from the Santa Rosa campus before entering the school.

The shooting prompted a terrifying 2½-hour lockdown affecting thousands of students at three campuses that ended after police pulled the suspect from class in front of his peers.

Staff reporters Alana Minkler and Jeremy Hay contributed to this story.