A 13-year-old DeRenne Middle School student on Thursday admitted her role in a May 6 knife attack on a fellow schoolmate at the school and a separate incident involving another female student four days earlier.
Attorney Jonah Pine, representing the defendant, told Chatham County Juvenile Court Judge LeRoy Burke III his client admitted to charges of aggravated assault, disrupting a public school and carrying a knife within a school safety zone or on school property in connection with the May 6 knife attack on a 13-year-old girl.
He also told Burke the defendant admitted to a charge of disrupting a public school in a May 2 incident involving a 14-year-old female student in which administrators intervened.
In return, Assistant District Attorney Allison Bailey agreed to dismiss an affray charge in the May 2 incident.
Both the aggravated assault and possessing a knife on school grounds are designated felony charges reserved for the most serious juvenile crimes. Disrupting a public school is a misdemeanor offense.
Burke scheduled a July 31 disposition hearing at which time he will determine whether the defendant is a designated felon and impose punishment.
The Savannah Morning News generally does not identify juveniles until a judge adjudicates the offender as a designated felon.
Burke also took under advisement a request by Pine that the defendant be allowed to leave custody at the Savannah Regional Youth Detention Center and return to her home with an electronic monitor pending disposition of the case.
Pine said each of the defendant’s issues involved the school and she has been suspended.
“This is a very upsetting thing to her,” Pine told Burke.
Bailey opposed release, citing the “pre-emptive assault” nature of the May 6 attack.
Bailey said evidence shows the defendant waited for the victim in a restroom on May 6 and stabbed her repeatedly with a five-inch knife.
The victim was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries.
“It’s clearly a premeditated, pre-emptive assault,” Bailey told Burke.
In the May 2 incident the defendant and another female were posturing for a fight in which the defendant “threw the first lick” before as many as five school administrators helped break it up, Bailey said.
Both incidents were captured on videos, Bailey said.
The defendant “is not a victim, but she is very much wanting to participate in this fight,” the prosecutor said.