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Grand Jury Indicts Bernard Hopkins, Baltimore Student In Patterson High School Classroom Stabbing

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- A grand jury formally indicted a 16-year-old Baltimore City student for stabbing his classmate last month at Patterson High School.

Bernard Hopkins, Patterson High Stabbing Suspect Held Without Bail

Family members of teenage suspect Bernard Hopkins maintain that the stabbing victim bullied him. They say they visited Hopkins in jail Wednesday and he wants to come home.

The indictment announcement came during a hearing at the Patapsco Avenue District Courthouse Thursday.

High-profile defense attorneys Warren Brown and James Rhodes are representing Hopkins. Brown told WJZ he would have more to say on the matter next week.

Police said they recovered the switchblade used in the attack. They said Hopkins threw it from a third-floor classroom window. Video posted online shows the stabbing, which the victim survived with wounds to his chest and thigh.

"He carries it for protection," one of Hopkins' family members said of the knife. She asked WJZ to conceal her identity. "The schools need more security and nothing is being done."

Hopkins' relatives said he had to leave school over relentless taunts and only came back to the classroom the week of the incident.

"He finally goes back and he had to defend himself against some other students who were bullying him," the family member said.

Baltimore Teachers Union president Marietta English called the video "disturbing."

In a statement immediately after the stabbing, the union said:

Violence of this nature, or of any nature, is completely unacceptable. It is extremely disturbing that in order to feel safe in the classroom, a child felt the need to bring a knife to school. This horrible incident has several layers. It is important to note that the student who did this stabbing was being bullied. Violence should never be tolerated and neither should bullying. This brings attention to the critical need for increased investments to fully-staff our schools with social workers and psychologists to help deflate situations like this before escalate.

The school system said the teenage suspect would receive "all appropriate consequences in accordance with the district's code of conduct and the law."

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