A 17-year-old was knifed in the buttocks while his mother watched during a morning ambush blocks from his Bronx high school.
The student, whose name has not been released, had been walking with his mother toward William H. Taft High School Educational Campus on East 172nd Street near Sheridan Avenue in Mount Eden around 9:30 a.m. Monday when two attackers rushed him, according to police and sources. One assailant struck him while the other plunged a knife into his buttocks, authorities said.
The teen had intended to register for classes that morning. Instead, he was rushed to Harlem Hospital in stable condition, cops said.
The stabbing came as two other students were arrested with firearms at their schools in separate boroughs on the same day, police said.
On Staten Island, an 18-year-old was busted with a loaded gun after a fight broke out at Curtis High School on Hamilton Avenue in the St. George neighborhood around 10:20 a.m., less than an hour after the Bronx attack, according to authorities and sources. School safety officers had intervened to break up the brawl between the teen and another student when cops separated them and searched his bag.
Samuel Owusu, 18, was found carrying a gun with bullets in the cartridge in his backpack, police said. He did not draw the weapon during the altercation, authorities noted. He was charged with multiple counts of gun possession plus unlawful possession of cannabis, cops said.
By afternoon, a third weapon was detected in Queens. A 17-year-old student passing through a scanner at the Queens School for Career Development on Linden Boulevard near 143rd Street in South Jamaica triggered an alert when the machine picked up a gun in his backpack, according to police and sources. It remained unclear whether that firearm was loaded. The teen was taken into custody but had not been charged by Monday evening, authorities said.
The three incidents marked a violent start to the school week across New York City, with students facing threats both outside and inside their buildings. The Bronx stabbing victim’s mother witnessed the entire attack, adding a particularly disturbing dimension to an already alarming episode of street violence targeting a minor on his way to class.
The back-to-back discoveries of firearms on school grounds also renewed questions about campus security protocols. At the Queens career school, the scanner ultimately functioned as intended. At Curtis High School, the weapon surfaced only after a fight had already erupted between students.
None of the three incidents appeared connected, police indicated. The Bronx stabbing remained under investigation Monday night, with no arrests reported.