Lynn candidate in center of stabbing

LYNN – The city’s election season took a strange, 11th hour twist when a councilor at large candidate with a resume of helping youth gang members played Good Samaritan to a 16-year-old suspect in a multiple stabbing near Classical High School Thursday afternoon.Eugene Schneeberg and Lynn police confirmed the 31-year-old Margin Street resident drove the teenager to Union Hospital to be treated for a hand wound at about 3 p.m. The teen, who is a student at Classical High School, was arrested early Friday morning and charged with armed assault with intent to murder, two counts, and assault and battery with a knife.He was expected to plead not delinquent to the charges in Juvenile Court.For now, he is the only suspect in the stabbings of four students at Keslar Avenue and Holyoke Street. A 15 year old suffered non-life-threatening stab wounds; a 17 year old was listed in stable condition with stab wounds; another 17 year old was listed in stable but guarded condition with back and leg wounds and an 18 year old was listed in stable condition with torso and arm wounds.”It appears to be gang-related,” Police Lt. William Sharpe said.Police said the attacks occurred at the corner within sight of Classical sometime after school was dismissed Thursday. Police interviewed the stabbing suspect after Schneeberg called police at 3:13 p.m. to report he had taken the teen to Union Hospital with a hand wound.Police gang unit members subsequently arrested the teen at his Lynn home shortly after midnight Friday.Sharpe said Schneeberg told police he drove to Classical Thursday afternoon to pick up students who were scheduled to help him distribute campaign literature. He saw the 16 year old standing at the corner of Keslar and O’Callaghan Way and waved to him.When he left Classical with the students, Schneeberg spotted the teen running across Keslar to Hood Playground. Schneeberg pulled to the curb, asked the teen if he was OK, and noticed the hand wound.”He checked out the wound and thought the suspect should have medical attention,” Sharpe said, quoting police reports.Schneeberg on Friday told The Item he was campaigning “a couple of blocks away” from the stabbing site when he spotted the teen and drove him to Union Hospital.He said he was unaware of the stabbing incident or the teen’s involvement in it when he picked him up.”I was aware he had been a victim of an act of violence. He was bleeding a lot. I did what any other adult would do.I talked to police immediately after I thought the situation was safe,” he said Friday.In his campaign literature, Schneeberg says he has served as Straight Ahead Ministries’ director for the past five years. His literature describes the Lynn-based organization as “a mentoring/gang intervention program focused on giving Lynn youth positive opportunities to help them make healthy and appropriate life decisions.”Schneeberg confirmed he knows the teen suspect and said he has “a number of relationships with young people.””My full time job is to work with kids who are in trouble and help turn them around.”Acting Police Chief Kevin Coppinger on Friday described Schneeberg as a witness in the investigation and said the council candidate has cooperated with police.”He called it in which was the right thing to do but this case continues to be investigated,” Coppinger said.Coppinger said local police aided by out of town law enforcement agencies will boost their presence from normal patrol levels on local streets this weekend in anticipation of Saturday evening and early Sunday morning Halloween celebrations.”There will be a lot of police officers out there.”