UCLA Student Stabbed in Chemistry Lab

(AP)  Students and faculty at UCLA are stunned following a horrific attack in a campus chemistry lab in which a male student allegedly slashed the throat of a female student.

The woman underwent surgery for multiple stab wounds at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and was in stable condition Thursday night, Los Angeles police said.

Damon Thompson, 20, was arrested in the same chemistry building shortly after the stabbing Thursday. He was booked Thursday night on suspicion of attempted murder and was being held on $1 million bail, said Los Angeles police Officer Sara Faden.

UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton said the victim and suspect were both 20-year-old seniors taking an organic chemistry class along with other students who were in the undergraduate teaching lab at the time.

Cyril Baida, a teaching assistant who was working in a lab across the hall, said he saw the victim stagger out of the lab while another teaching assistant applied pressure to her neck, Baida said.

"The poor girl was completely drenched with blood. She was talking at first but then she started fading away," he said. "We told her she was going to be fine and to keep breathing so she didn't pass out. I told the other TA that he was doing great so he didn't faint either."

Baida said he did not know the victim or the suspect but was told that they were lab partners or had worked together in a small group on projects in their lab section.

Los Angeles city police and campus police interviewed about 30 witnesses who were in or near the lab and might have seen the attack, Campus Police Assistant Chief Jeff Young said. The motive is under investigation.

"Her TA - that guy deserves a medal. He had his hands around her wounds and was yelling, 'Call 911,"' said Baida, a 26-year-old biochemistry graduate student. "I called 911 and told him to bring her into our lab. He kept holding her so she wouldn't bleed until the paramedics arrived."

Baida said the organic chemistry lab where the attack took place is a demanding class.

"All my students have taken it and they hate it. Usually people bond during classes like that because they have to study together. I don't think it was so tough that it makes people go crazy," he said. "It's awful, but things like this can happen anywhere."

UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block said the campus community was shocked by the attack and "wishing for the speedy recovery of the young woman who was injured."

[dastib]

gun's knife's stick's rock's baseballbat's'' it's the stupid people that is going to Hell to be with the Devil for ever and ever'' darkness you can Feel'' Bottomless pit lonelyness fear then Lake of Fire on Jugement Day'' that never end's goe's on and on and on'' it never end's never ever!!!!!!!

[valentin73]

Like the president at Yale said over that other incident:

THE DARK SIDE OF PERSONALITY IS COMING OUT!

Domestic Violence has reached a new frontier, CAMPUS VIOLENCE!!!

[gramto8]

I have probably 100 knives in my home from the most mundane plastic to super sharp Ginsu! I have NEVER used one in the assault of another.... though I have managed to slice my own fingers quite a few times. ;-)

[Iamthemango]

Ban organic chemistry!

[rhs648]

Don't you dare ban my butter knife or my steak knife. My box cutter is a requirement for my livelihood. Knives are found in virtually every home and restaurant in America. The number of deaths from knives is probably minuscule compared to the hundreds of millions of knives found in homes and restaurants. Face it! We do not live in a perfect world.

[DaVicar8]

Lab Work at major Universities seems to be fast becoming one of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S.

[rhs648]

DaVicar8 - You are correct. An easy solution would be do dumb down the classes. Show films, filmstrips, and videos instead of handing students the scalpels. We are in the age of modern technology. Then hope you never need a surgeon who got hos or her training from a filmstrip.

[theywerestrongandgood]

How sad for this victim to have to endure such an awful attack. I hope the resilience and determination that led her to the point of earning a teacher's assistant position at UCLA in organic will carry her through to a full and speedy recovery.

I see I misread the article where they said "another teaching assistant" to mean the attacked student was a TA. In any case, she has made it to organic, so she has a lot of effort behind her.

[theywerestrongandgood]

How sad for this victim to have to endure such an awful attack. I hope the resilience and determination that led her to the point of earning a teacher's assistant position at UCLA in organic will carry her through to a full and speedy recovery.

[Hosheen]

When, oh when, are we going to ban edged weapons, including butter knives? After all, even those can be easily sharpened into a deadly weapon.

Possession of even one of these instruments of death will inevitably lead otherwise stable people into committing horrendous acts of violence as we have seen in this and countless other cases. "How many deaths will it take 'till we see, that too many people have died?"

The powerful tableware lobby will oppose this of course, because they care nothing for human life but only for their obscene profits.

[DaVicar8]

Face it...knives and other sharpened implements were designed for one thing, and one thing only...to kill people.
You're right about the Knife Lobby, however...they are on the cutting edge of massive kickbacks and payoffs to Congressmen who are willing to look the other way.

[probell]

Don't forget the surgeons with their large collections of knives. How many knives does one person need, anyway? They took a young woman who had already been stabbed and they used even more knives on her. And look how surgeons are glorified on television!