ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A teenage boy is behind bars after police say he stabbed a teenage girl in broad daylight.
It all happened Wednesday afternoon on North New Street in Allentown.
This horrific attack is one of several violent crimes involving teens that the city has seen over the past few weeks.
A local community group is speaking out.
“We wanna be preventative, not responsive,” says Jeani Garcia, Executive Director, Promise Neighborhoods Of The Lehigh Valley.
Promise Neighborhoods of the Lehigh Valley is sounding the alarm after two deadly shootings involving teenagers, and now Wednesday, a stabbing involving a 15-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl.
“Right now our flagship is zero youth violence at Promise Neighborhoods and we do that through violence interrupters credible messengers and just mentorship for high-risk youth,” says Garcia.
Garcia says prevention starts with people seeking help.
“We can only do that when folks are reaching out saying hey we need mentorship or we need some de-escalation here between youth and the community,” Garcia says.
Garcia says stopping youth violence starts with coming together.
“We’re meeting with city leaders, community leaders to talk about what the collective solution is, nobody can do this by themselves, these kids need us. Prevention is the key and we can do it. We can have zero youth violence in the city we just gotta do it together,” Garcia says.
As for the stabbing victim from Wednesday, police say she suffered serious injuries.
The boy accused of stabbing her is facing attempted homicide, aggravated assault, simple assault, and possession of instruments of crime charges.
His name is being withheld due to his age.