Tacoma student charged after vape pen dispute leads to school stabbings

A stolen vape pen allegedly sparked the violence that turned Foss High School into a crime scene, leaving four students, a school security guard and the suspect injured in a matter of minutes. What began as a dispute inside the Tacoma campus on South Tyler Street escalated into multiple stabbings in the hallway and cafeteria, forcing a lockdown, a police response and a scramble to get wounded students to area hospitals.

Police said the incident was reported shortly after 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 30, at the school in the 2100 block of South Tyler Street. Multiple 911 calls reported that students had been stabbed. Tacoma Public Schools said the school went into lockdown at 1:38 p.m., and students were dismissed at 2:45 p.m. after staff helped break up the fight and officers secured the scene.

Pierce County prosecutors later filed four counts of first-degree assault with a deadly weapon enhancement against 16-year-old Waleed Emad Essakhi, who was charged as an adult and pleaded not guilty. His bail was set at $750,000. Court documents say detectives were told the confrontation started after a vape pen was stolen the day before, a small dispute that spiraled into a violent confrontation on campus.

Tacoma Fire said the four student victims were initially in critical condition but later stable, while the security guard and Essakhi had minor injuries. Six people in all, including the suspect, were taken to local hospitals. Northwest Public Broadcasting reported that two students underwent surgery. KOMO News said officers responded around 1:35 p.m. and that six injured people were transported from the scene.

Tacoma Public Schools canceled classes and after-school activities for Friday, May 1, and said counselors and additional administrative staff would be on site when Foss reopened Monday, May 4. The district’s response reflected the scale of the disruption, but the deeper concern is how quickly a petty theft allegation became a mass stabbing inside a school that should have been built to absorb conflict before it turned lethal.

Foss High School has carried this kind of trauma before. In January 2007, a student was shot and killed in a hallway there, leaving the Tacoma campus marked by another episode of violence that now adds urgency to questions about contraband enforcement, conflict intervention and how schools respond when a small dispute becomes the first step in a much larger disaster.