Teen charged in fatal stabbing at Spring High School Horrific morning: Spring High student charged with murder in death of classmate; 3 other teens injured

Luis Alonzo Alfaro, 17, is jailed in the fatal stabbing at Spring High School on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2013. Luis Alonzo Alfaro, 17, is jailed in the fatal stabbing at Spring High School on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2013. Photo: Harris County Sheriff's Office Photo: Harris County Sheriff's Office Image 1 of / 156 Caption Close Teen charged in fatal stabbing at Spring High School 1 / 156 Back to Gallery

UPDATE:

The suspect appeared in probable-cause court early Thursday morning. He is being held in the Harris County Jail on $150,000 bond, according to county records.

ORIGINAL STORY:

The 3,000 students at Spring High School on Wednesday morning should have been scattering to their classes minutes before first period began at 7:15.

Instead, a fatal knife attack in a hallway outside the cafeteria meant thousands of students, faculty and staff members started their school day on lockdown in classrooms and offices.

Word of the horrific second-week-of-school incident washed over the north Harris County community as students contacted loved ones. By 10 a.m., emergency voice and text messages from Spring Independent School District officials hit parents' cellphones explaining that a bloody fight had turned deadly.

"There was a fatality," the alerts said. "Three students have been transported to the hospital for injuries."

Just before noon, authorities apprehended three teens - all Spring ISD students - for questioning.

By lunch time, the students had streamed outside the campus at 19428 North Freeway in the sweltering heat toward the football stadium while anxious parents and loved ones swarmed the school to reconnect with their students.

The damage from the school fight was permanent. The altercation claimed the life of 17-year-old Joshua Broussard, an aunt confirmed.

Spring High junior Juwan Hill, 16, witnessed several students carrying Broussard, who was holding his neck.

"They were all screaming and crying," Hill said at an evening prayer vigil. "There was blood all over the place."

By 4 p.m., investigators were focused on one student and determined that the other two taken into custody were witnesses.

Classes canceled

Late Wednesday, authorities charged Luis Alonzo Alfaro with murder. The 17-year-old is accused of pulling a knife during the fight and stabbing Broussard to death. He is old enough to be considered an adult under Texas law.

Alfaro was booked into the Harris County Jail with bail set at $50,000. A preliminary court hearing is scheduled for Friday. Online court records list no attorney for him.

Deavean Bazile, 16, who suffered injuries to his abdomen, was airlifted to Memorial Hermann Hospital while a pair of unidentified students was taken to Houston Northwest Medical Center. By Wednesday afternoon, one had been discharged in good condition. The other was transferred to Memorial Hermann Texas Trauma Institute and was reportedly in good condition, according to a hospital official.

Classes at Spring High have been canceled for the rest of the week.

Spring ISD spokeswoman Karen Garrison said that the school will be closed Thursday and Friday, with classes resuming Monday morning.

"We will be upping security as well," she said, declining to go into detail about what that would mean for students and faculty. Both the Harris County Sheriff's Office and Spring ISD police have said they will be providing additional security at the high school.

Frustrated parents complained about the lack of information school officials gave them on Wednesday as well as about the nearly three-hour lag between the incident and official word from the district.

Spring ISD Superintendent Ralph Draper addressed the criticism by explaining that the school had to be secured immediately after the stabbing and district administrators could not interfere with the police investigation. Once those two items were accomplished, Draper said, the district was able to communicate with parents.

'A misunderstanding'

Chris Burks said his 15-year-old daughter sent him text messages saying she was OK, but he was "not happy" with the generic text he received from the district that didn't indicate his child's condition.

"This is the worst fear of a parent," said Donna Mendoza, who also has a 15-year-old daughter at the school.

Neftali Castro said she graduated from Spring High School five years ago and isn't surprised that something like this happened. The school was rough back then, she said, and there were often fights among the students. "I was really scared something happened to my brother," Castro said, while waiting for her younger sibling who was locked down in a classroom. "When I found out he was OK, I was relieved."

At an afternoon news conference, Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia said that a confrontation escalated into a fight and weapons were pulled out.

He said the incident "may have been gang related," but did not elaborate on that point.

Deputies had not been called to the school about gang violence previously, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Draper characterized the incident as a spillover from a community disagreement, adding that the safety of students was the district's top priority.

"Educating kids is actually No. 2 to that safety," he said during a news conference. "When street violence pours into the school, it compromises the well-being of all of our students."

A spokesman for the Bazile family said the incident was part of an ongoing disagreement between young men in rival groups.

"This was not gang violence, but simply a misunderstanding between two people," said Pastor E.A. Deckard of Green House International Church. "We pray for the family of the man who did not make it through this tragedy. We as a community need to come together to show kids the value of real life."

Prayer vigil

Wednesday night, more than 200 people participated in a prayer vigil at Spring Baptist Church near the high school campus.

"We're a diverse community and we came here to pray for our community. We are not going to heal overnight," said the Rev. Mark Estep, the church's senior pastor. "Spring is a family. We know each other and we care about each other."

Vigil attendee Hill, who saw Broussard carried away, said a stabbing was out of the ordinary on campus. "It's a really laid-back school," he said.