Kennewick High student accused of stabbing another teen. The victim tried to stop a fight

A Kennewick High School student was arrested Thursday for allegedly stabbing another teen who tried to intervene during a fight.

The clash that led to the 16-year-old’s hospitalization Wednesday was the second that day, and the third in the last week involving many of the same people.

Kennewick police will not say if the continuing conflict was gang related. However, Lt. Aaron Clem did note that a necklace was grabbed in each of the first two fights.

Miguel A. Silva, 18, was taken into custody on suspicion of first-degree assault after detectives served a search warrant at his family’s home Thursday afternoon. He was booked into the Benton County jail at 5:12 p.m., online records show.

There may be more arrests in the coming days since the investigation is ongoing, police said.

The victim’s name was not disclosed in a news release.

His stab wound was not life-threatening, but he remains in a Tri-Cities hospital for observation, said Clem.

According to the news release, police and Kennewick High security were not aware any of the fights had occurred until the victim sought treatment at 2:40 p.m. Wednesday.

After responding to the hospital, the teen told officers he’d been stabbed in a fight involving several other males in a school parking lot along South Garfield Street.

The police department’s school resource officer was notified immediately since the incident happened on campus.

The officer worked with school security “to determine the nature of the assault and who was responsible for the assault,” the news release said.

It was during the investigation that the officer and school security discovered it was a continuation of a previously unreported fight last week in nearby Keewaydin Park, and another fight that had happened earlier Wednesday.

Clem told the Tri-City Herald that a necklace being worn by a participant in the park fight was grabbed at some point during the clash.

Then, in Wednesday’s earlier fight, another necklace was grabbed in retaliation for last week’s action.

Police used witness information and surveillance camera footage to identify Silva as the stabbing suspect in the third fight, the release said. They further learned that the victim was not the instigator of the fight, but rather was a friend of some participants and tried to break it up.

Evidence allegedly shows that the stabbing was intentional and not a mistake, Clem said.

No other teen was reported injured.

On Thursday, the school resource officer teamed up with the department’s Criminal Investigations Unit, which led to the search warrant at the suspect’s home.

“We appreciate our ongoing partnership with the Kennewick School District,” Clem said in the news release. “Having SROs in the schools as a result of that partnership led to the quick resolution of this case and making our students and staff safer.”

Anyone with information about the fights or the actual stabbing is asked to call the non-emergency dispatch number at 509-628-0333 and reference this case.

This story was originally published June 3, 2021 at 7:32 PM.