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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A rise in violence has students and parents on Staten Island concerned. There have been at least two incidents involving guns, two days in a row at the same school.
Police responded both times to Susan E. Wagner High School in the Willowbrook section of the borough.
On Wednesday, CBS2’s Leah Mishkin spoke to students about the violence.
“It’s just scary, like you hear of other shootings around the country,” senior Julianna Raimonda said.
Exit doors were secured and students had to stay inside the building Monday afternoon after a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old reported being assaulted near the track/football field.
Police said one of the victims was struck with a gun across the face. He was taken to the hospital in stable condition. No arrests have been made in the ongoing investigation.
NEW YORK - Parents are outraged after a number of fights at Susan Wagner High School on Staten Island.
On Monday afternoon, two teens — a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old — were attacked, police said. They were punched repeatedly. At one point, one of the attackers pointed a gun at one of the boys. Police said the 16-year-old told them he was pistol-whipped.
Gregory Floyd, the president of Local 237, which represents school safety agents, said the number of school safety agents has gone from about 5,000 in 2019 to about 1,800 now.
"I am afraid that somebody's going to get killed," he said.
So far this year, New York City schools have seen a dramatic increase in weapons seizure when compared to 2019.
From July through November, 10 firearms were recovered at NYC schools compared to just one in that period in 2019.
“Weapons have absolutely no place in our schools, and our outstanding school safety agents work every day to stop dangerous items from entering our school and keep our schools safe,” a Department of Education spokesperson said. “We worked in partnership with the NYPD to increase scanning in priority communities and the increase in recovered is a result of this vigilant work keeping dangerous items out of our schools.”
City officials placed a single metal detector in a Brooklyn school building the day after a student was busted with a loaded gun — and turned up 21 weapons in just one day, law-enforcement sources said.
The Department of Education installed the scanner in the complex housing the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice and two other schools in Downtown Brooklyn Thursday morning after the 17-year-old was nabbed there allegedly with a 9mm pistol and more than $30,000 in cash.
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