A 16-year-old was stabbed to death during a fight Wednesday outside a graduation ceremony hosted at Salt Lake Academy, a high school in Herriman, police said.
Officers have since taken multiple witnesses into custody for questioning and are following up on leads, Deputy Chief Cody Stromberg said late Wednesday afternoon. Herriman police investigators hadn’t yet made an arrest or determined a motive for the stabbing, but Stromberg said they had identified most, if not all, of those involved and didn’t believe there was an ongoing threat to public safety.
Police learned of the stabbing near 14800 S. Beckenbauer Ave., in a neighborhood southeast of the academy, at around 12:30 p.m.
When officers arrived, they found the 16-year-old stabbed in the chest. Paramedics treated the child, but the teenager died at the scene, Stromberg said. Officers are investigating his death as a homicide.
Stromberg said investigators believe the teen was in a vehicle in the area and got into some sort of confrontation in the street, where he was stabbed. He said another child had since shown up at a local hospital for treatment, and officers believe that child’s injuries may be related to the fight.
It is not yet clear if those involved were attending the graduation, which was for students from South Jordan’s Valley High School, though it was held at the academy, officials said Thursday. Investigators did not believe they lived in the neighborhood, Stromberg said.
“We’re still trying to piece it together to see if they were there for the graduation or if they just happened to be in that neighborhood for some other reason,” he said. “We just don’t know yet.”
During the investigation, officers found a car that may have been connected to the fight parked in Riverton, near Foothills Elementary School. Police asked school officials there to delay student pick-up on Wednesday “out of an abundance of caution.” That order was lifted just before 4 p.m.