Attacker 'was no loner'

Pennsylvania officials sought a motive yesterday for a stabbing rampage at a high school where a 16-year-old pupil with a ''blank expression" was accused of wielding two knives and wounding nearly two dozen people.

The attacker stalked through the crowded halls of his Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville near Pittsburgh on Wednesday, stabbing victims in the torso and slashing their arms and faces with 20cm steel blades before being tackled by an assistant principal, officials and pupils said.

Alex Hribal was taken into custody and charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault, Murrysville Police Department Captain Rob Liermann said.

He appeared in court in shackles and hospital gown.

The teen had no psychiatric or disciplinary problems, and his family described him as a good pupil who mingled well with others, family lawyer Patrick Thomassey said in television interviews.

"He was not a loner," he told CNN yesterday.

The Associated Pressquoted one of the stabbing victims, Nate Moore, 15, as saying he saw the boy tackle and knife a freshman.

Moore said he was about to intervene when Hribal got up and slashed his face, causing a wound that required 11 stitches.

The attacker ''had the same expression on his face that he has every day, which was the freakiest part", the AP reportquoted Moore as saying.

''He wasn't saying anything. He didn't have any anger on his face. It was just a blank expression," Moore said.

Thomassey said he met the teen for 20 minutes before his arraignment on Wednesday but could not identify a motive.

"We're trying to figure that out," Thomassey told CNN. "This is a nice young boy. I mean, nobody would expect this.

This is not a dysfunctional family. His parents are active with their two sons."

His parents were horrified and sent their condolences to the victims and their families, he said.

He was charged as an adult but Thomassey told CNN he would try to move him into the juvenile court system.

Twenty-one pupils and a security officer were stabbed in the incident, said Dan Stevens, a spokesman for Westmoreland County emergency management.

Though the U S has seen a series of large-scale shootings in public places in recent years, including schools, movie theatre s and shopping areas, mass stabbings are less common.

Police and the FBI on Wednesday searched the suspect's home. Neighbours said both parents worked, and the teen has a brother who also attended Franklin Regional High School.

The school will be closed, probably until Monday, while police conduct an investigation, according to officials. The victims were aged between 14 and 17 years.

Among the most seriously injured was a 17-year-old boy, who remained in critical condition at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital early yesterday following surgery, a hospital spokesman said.

A knife had passed through his liver, diaphragm and some major blood vessels but missed his heart and aorta. At least seven other teenage boys were recovering in two other hospitals.

On Wednesday evening, community members held candlelight vigils for the wounded.