North Sydney Boys student Tasered after brandishing knife at school

A 15-year-old North Sydney Boys High student brandishing a large knife has been Tasered by police during a tense stand-off that forced the prestigious selective school into lockdown.

Police were called to the school on Sydney’s north shore just before 1pm on Thursday. The boy had armed himself with what one witness described as a chef’s knife following a fight with another student.

The school, which has claimed the No.1 spot in the Higher School Certificate for the past two years, was put into lockdown for an hour as police responded to the danger.

Dramatic footage obtained by Nine News shows six officers pursuing the student, who was wearing a red apron, through the school grounds. They urged him to drop the knife and threatened to deploy Tasers.

The officers followed the teenager through the courtyard and onto a paved area before he was eventually led out of the school by two officers.

“The 15-year-old was arrested, following a Taser deployment by police,” police said in a statement.

Mathew Lyall, a tradesman who witnessed the incident while working on a roof behind the school, said the student looked to be “not in the right head space” and was “shaking his head a lot” as he walked around the campus.

“It was pretty confronting, to be honest, because of the size of the knife ... I assume it was a chef’s knife,” Lyall told Nine News.

The NSW Department of Education said the lockdown lasted one hour, ending at 1.30pm, and that no other students nor staff were harmed.

The teenager was taken to hospital for further assessment as police continue investigations.

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