Was Stabbing In NC High School Self-Defense?

This past Monday there was a mob attack on a student at Southeast Raleigh Magnet High School. The aftermath left a 15 year old student dead and another 16 year old in the hospital with stab wounds. The 14 year old who did the stabbing has been charged with murder. Video of the incident has been making the rounds on the Internet. In that video you can also see a number of students filming the attack with their cell phones. I don’t know if any of those videos have been uploaded.

The 14 year old charged with murder was the intended victim of the mob attacker and not the instigator of the attack. His family is arguing that it was self-defense and that he was targeted as a result of an earlier incident involving his older sister and mother. The mother, Cherelle McLaughlin, asserts that she warned school authorities when she dropped her son off at school that he would be targeted for defending his sister. Wake County school officials have not responded as to whether they had prior warning.

As attorney Andrew Branca has said there are five elements to be able to claim self-defense. Moreover, all five must be met or the claim fails. Those elements are avoidance, innocence, imminence, proportionality, and reasonableness. He goes over these in details in his seminar which I have taken, online, and in his book The Law of Self Defense: The Indispensable Guide to the Armed Citizen, 3rd Ed. (#commission earned)

Branca posted a video today examining in detail the video of the attack as well as the news reports on the incident. He also examines the felony murder rule and the duty to retreat regarding this attack. His conclusion was that that 14 year old who was attacked acted in self-defense and was legally using deadly force.

I am embedding the video below. The video is a bit over 1 hour long. Even if you don’t want to watch the whole video, I would try to watch the first 30 minutes. It really is worth it.

There is, of course, the question of the knife in school. His mother has asserted elsewhere he didn’t bring one to school but got it while there. I don’t know if that holds up or not. As Branca noted, just as with Bernie Goetz in the subway attack years ago, he may be found to have acted in self-defense but still found guilty of a weapons charge. NCGS § 14-269.2 (d) would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor for him to possess “any sharp-pointed or edged instrument” on school grounds.

This is a sad incident all around for all involved. That includes the victim whose life has now been unalterably changed forever and the family of the attacker killed. For a magnet school that prides itself on being an International Baccalaureate high school, the level of violence in it is reprehensible. It has the highest rate of violence of any school in Wake County. Moreover, students there were three times more likely to experience or witness violence than other Wake County students.