Meade High Lockdown Lifted After Stabbing, Police Still Seek Suspect

Updated at 4:10 p.m.

SEVERN, MD — Police continue to search for the assailant who stabbed a 17-year-old male student Thursday morning at Meade High, sending the Severn school into a five-hour lockdown.

Officers said the victim was taken to the University of Maryland R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where he is conscious and alert. He is in stable but serious condition.

Authorities said they have not identified the suspect or suspects, but they think the attacker was a student. Investigators have not found the weapon in what they believe was an isolated incident.

Detectives are working through leads while the school remains on lockdown.

Students, who were provided lunch and able to use the restroom, remained in their classrooms until dismissal at 3:18 p.m. All afterschool activities at Meade High were canceled Thursday.

"Turn yourself in. Turn yourself in," Anne Arundel County Police Chief Amal Awad told the suspect at a Thursday press conference.

Awad said a student resource officer stationed at the school notified authorities of the stabbing at 10:09 a.m.

Western District patrol officers responded, assisting the SRO and school staff with life-saving measures for the victim in the hallway.

"I'm asking the community to wrap their arms around this young man, his family," Awad said, calling it "a traumatic incident." "Children should be free to come to school, learn and not fear of being violently assaulted or harmed while they're protected by our education system."

Anne Arundel County Public Schools Superintendent Mark Bedell promised to hold those responsible accountable as outlined in the student code of conduct.

"We will take the appropriate actions," Bedell said at the news conference. "We 100% can assure you that actions will be taken with anybody involved in this situation."

Students had just completed a period change when the stabbing happened.

Students were placed in classrooms, and the school went on lockdown to let first responders act without obstacles.

"This school responded to the procedure of moving into a lockdown process to the T," Bedell said. "They were easily able to move through to intervene."

Bedell wants to explore increased security in schools.

He said his fiscal year 2026 budget proposal includes money to pilot "non-invasive technologies" that detect weapons. That budget is still under consideration by the Anne Arundel County Board of Education, and it won't take effect until July 1.

Bedell hopes to "make school as safe as possible" and "ensure that our schools are safe havens in this community."

"Our primary goal should be that when parents send kids to our schools, the one thing that happens is that they leave our schools a little bit smarter on a daily basis," Bedell said. "When we have these types of altercations, … it takes away from that."

The AACPS Superintendent encouraged more community members to participate in his #BePresent program to curb violence. The campaign, launched in January 2023, trains adult volunteers to be an extra set of eyes and ears monitoring schools.

Bedell said he doesn't yet know if anybody from the program was on duty at Meade at the time of the stabbing.

"In order to curtail violence, adult presence can really change things," Bedell said of #BePresent. "Schools can't do it alone... The initiative is still alive and well."