A boy, claiming he was bullied to the breaking point. An SRO, willed by duty to protect. And a school, standing united in the face of uncertainty and fear.
On Tuesday, April 5, Carwise Middle School went into lockdown after School Resourse Officer Kenneth Fridlund was stabbed three times by seventh grader Kenny Stoltman in a bathroom within building five.
Stoltman, who said he was bullied for wearing his Boy Scout uniform to school, devised a plan. The 13-year-old packed eleven 12-ounce bottles of gasoline into a duffel bag. He also packed a lighter and a knife he had purchased on a Boy Scout outing.
Fridlund investigated the bathroom, where Kenny had placed his gasoline in a stall, after complaints from teachers and students that the building- and Kenny- reeked of gas.
The SRO, along with another staffer, confronted Kenny in the bathroom. Without provocation, Kenny stabbed Fridlund in the abdomen. The two wrestled with Kenny over the knife, and Fridlund was stabbed twice more- in the arm and shoulder- during the struggle before they could subdue the boy with pepper spray.
Meanwhile, students and staff members were told to go into lockdown shortly after first period began. There was no indication of what was going on until about an hour later.
“All they told us as that our SRO had been attacked,” Carwise eighth-grader Tiffany Nguyen said, “but we found out what was going on over text messaging.”
Students and staff remained in lockdown almost the entire school day while parents and other members of the community waited anxiously for news.
Kenny Stoltman had a hard life. His father was purportedly an abusive alcoholic and drug addict who lost custody of Kenny after beating his girlfriend up so badly that she had to be hospitalized.
Kenny then moved down to Florida with his mother, who was bipolar and self-medicated with drugs. With warrants in Florida for her arrest, she eventually fled the state. Because Kenny’s father had died from complications from alcohol abuse, he moved in with his maternal grandmother.
In the aftermath, students at Carwise created a Facebook event urging students to wear pink on Friday, April 8, 2011, in support of their wounded SRO who is currently in the hospital for his wounds.
“They expect us to act like nothing happened,” Nguyen said.
A Palm Harbor University student reflected upon the tragedy.
“I never thought something like that would happen there,” freshman Marissa Remedios, who attended Carwise all three years of middle school, said.
This event has affected the students at PHUHS as well as those at Carwise since a good percentage of Carwise students attend PHU.
Kenny, once his mental health evaluation is completed, could be charged with one count of attempted murder and 11 counts of possession/ manufacturing of firebombs.
“It could have happened anywhere,” freshman Libby Jourdan said. “We need to bring back more discipline in the classroom.”
But discipline alone cannot ensure that terrible events like this will cease to occur.
Information from the St. Petersburg Times was used in this report.