Man stabs teacher outside school in unexpected attack, Colorado cops say

A man has been arrested after being accused of stabbing a teacher outside a school, Colorado officials said.

Thornton officers responded to the Meadow Community School after getting reports of a male teacher having been stabbed shortly after at 3 p.m., according to an Oct. 23 post on X by the police department.

When officers arrived, they took 31-year-old Damien Brooks into custody, officials said.

Brooks, who lives across the street from where the stabbing happened, got into an argument with the teacher before going to his home to get a knife, KUSA reported.

The teacher was transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, officers said.

Detectives determined the attack was likely unprovoked and that Brooks didn’t know the teacher, officers said.

McClatchy News reached out to Mapleton Public Schools for a statement on Oct. 24 and was awaiting a response.

“It’s three of my kids’ teacher. So my smallest one — he’s five — when he heard, he started crying,” Leslie Flores, a sixth-grade student’s mother, told KDVR. “My oldest one said, ‘Mom, what if it was one of the kids — what if it was us going to the bus?’ And that just got to me.”

Brooks was arrested on charges of attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault, officials told the outlet.

An investigation into the case is ongoing, officers said.

Thornton is about a 10-mile drive northeast from Denver.