A 9-year-old boy died after being repeatedly stabbed by a 12-year-old boy at a playground, police said today.
Michael Conner Verkerke ran home and collapsed on the porch around 6 p m yesterday after he was stabbed at a mobile home park in western Michigan, according to police.
Investigators said the older boy then left the playground and called police from a nearby home to turn himself in. The 9-year-old died after being rushed to a hospital, police said.
"We were sitting on our deck," Barb Poelman told The Associated Press by phone from her home in a mobile home park where the attack took place. "We heard the kids run across the front ... Screaming. He (Michael) ran with the kids that were with him."
A little later Poelman, 60, said the boy's distraught mother lay on the grass outside the family's home in Kentwood, near Grand Rapids. "She was screaming 'Where is the ambulance?' while her boy was laying on the porch bleeding," she said. "The kids, I thought they were just playing."
Witnesses told investigators that four children were playing when one of them, for unknown reasons, pulled a knife and stabbed the boy.
Glen Stacy, who lives nearby, told The Grand Rapids Press that the older boy approached him after the attack and asked to use his phone. He said the boy called to report the attack and turn himself in. Stacy said he also called police and described the boy as "very calm."
"The only time he raised his voice was when the police came," Stacy said.
When police arrived at the mobile home park, they first went to aid the stabbing victim, but the older boy wanted the officers to pick him up and yelled "Hello. I'm right here. You're going the wrong way," Stacy said.
The motive in the attack was still being investigated, said Police Chief Thomas Hillen.
A hearing for the 12-year-old was scheduled today afternoon in family court. Police said the boy was evaluated at a hospital before being taken to a juvenile detention center pending charges. The Kent County prosecutor's office will determine whether the boy will be charged as a juvenile or an adult, Hillen said.
A man who identified himself to the AP as Michael's grandfather declined to comment on the stabbing. The 9-year-old lived with his parents and two siblings in the mobile home park, said Poelman.
