A Bronx student stabbed a classmate to death with a switchblade and seriously injured another in front of more than a dozen classmates inside their high school Wednesday morning — and cops are investigating if bullying was a motive, sources said.
Investigators believe Abel Cedeno, 18, plunged the tool into a Matthew McCree, 15, and Ariane LaBoy, 16, around 10:50 a.m. on the fifth floor of the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation on Mohegan Avenue in East Tremont, sources said.
One of the victims was throwing pens across the room in the middle of a third-period U.S. history class when Cedeno was hit, according to witness Jomarlyn Colon, 16, who was in the classroom at the time.
Cedeno demanded to know who did it, and when the McCree stepped forward to tell him it was an accident, Cedeno pulled a knife out of his front pocket, she said. It was a three-inch switchblade, Police Chief Robert Boyce said during a press conference later in the day.
McCree moved in to strike Cedeno, and Cedeno plunged the blade into the young man’s chest, Colon said.
Then LaBoy confronted the crazed classmate, and Cedeno stabbed him in the chest too, according to Colon.
“He went crazy,” Colon said.
Students tried to render aid to their bloodied classmates as the teacher tried to restrain Cedeno, she said.
“We were just holding Matthew,” she said. “When Ariane got stabbed they were holding towels on him. All the kids were crying. Mr. Kennedy tried to hold Abel but he broke free. They didn’t hold him tight enough.”
Another pupil in a nearby classroom recalled the ensuing fear and confusion.
“We heard screaming from the hallway,” said 10th grader Steven Nunez, who was in a classroom down the hall. “The teacher opened the door and people were screaming and running down the hall. Someone came in and said someone got stabbed and there’s blood in the hallway. The teacher locked the door and we were on hard lock-down for almost an hour.”
After the melee, Cedeno walked out into the hallway, where he handed the knife to a school counselor — then calmly strolled into an assistant principal’s office and sat in a chair while police were called, Boyce said.
McCree was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Barnabas hospital, and LaBoy is there in critical but stable condition, officials said.
Cedeno was arrested and is being held at the 48th Precinct, where he told cops that an ongoing beef with his victims made him snap, according to Boyce.
“They were going back and forth for about two weeks — since school started,” he said. “It escalated today after some back and forth in the classroom.”
Mayor de Blasio pledged Wednesday to tighten security at the school, which does not have scanners, and implement scanning tomorrow.
“My heart goes out to the families,” de Blasio said during a press conference at the stationhouse. “Every parent every morning worries about the safety of their child.”
The school serves sixth through 12th grades and is co-located with elementary school PS 67. It’s also a low performer, and kids have told the city they do not feel safe there.
Just 5 percent of pupils there are proficient in math and 13 percent in English, according to last year’s state exam results. And only 55 percent of students said they felt safe on campus, well below the city average, according to DOE data.
Additional reporting by Daniel Prendergast, Elizabeth Rosner, Selim Algar and Max Jaeger