Students stabbed during lunch

Two freshmen were stabbed by a former student in a fight near Blair at lunch on Friday, May 31.

The students were injured in a fight with two former students that started as a fistfight at 11:45 AM near Marvin Memorial Methodist Church, across the street from Blair. The fight later moved to the corner of Lexington Drive and Pierce Drive where the freshmen were stabbed. After the stabbing, the victims called police from the Four Corners 7-11 and the suspects fled the scene.

Montgomery County police officer Debra Marshall said that the victims knew the suspects. Police arrested two suspects at 2:10 PM at the residence of one of the suspects. "Only one suspect was armed," said Marshall, and "only one suspect did the stabbing."

One student was wounded in the chest region and the other recieved several wounds in the back; both were taken to the Washington Hospital Center MedStar Unit for treatment. The student who was injured in the back was released on Sunday, and the student who was injured in the chest was listed in stable condition on Monday.

The student suspected of committing the stabbings was a former Blair sophomore who "the administration had tried to expel," said principal Phillip Gainous through PTSA president Marilyn Shoenfeld. "He had been placed in an alternative school for 45 days but came back to Blair" as a student on the day of the fight. The other suspect, who is accused of participating in the fight but not the stabbing, was a sophomore who was suspended from Blair at the time.

The student accused of committing the stabbings, David Ernest Dominguez, of the 700 block of Ludlow Street, is being held without bond. He is being charged as an adult with two counts of first degree attempted murder and two counts of first degree assault. The other student is being charged as a juvenile with two counts of second degree assault and was released into parental custody. Both of the victims and both of the suspects are 15 years old.

According to Marshall, the incident was not gang related. "It was just a long-running dispute," she said.

On the day of the stabbing, NBC4 news reported that MCPS spokesman Brian Porter said that the freshmen were out of the building because of Blair's open lunch policy. Porter's statement was not supported by school rules, which establish a strict closed lunch policy, and was contradicted by Assistant Principal Pat Hurley, who said, "we don't have open lunch."

The victims of the stabbing did not have permission to be outside of Blair at the time of the fight. "We don't have security ... at every door in the building," said Hurley. "We'd ostensibly need a body at every door" to make sure nobody left the building at any given time.

According to Hurley, MCPS and Blair are taking many actions, but declined to give details about the "confidential" proceedings. "This is a very serious situation," she said, "and we are treating it as a very serious situation."