Three unsettling incidents at and around New York City schools have set already nervous parents, students and educators on edge this week.
On Wednesday, the day after the Texas elementary school massacre, an intruder ran inside Public School 118 in Park Slope, Brooklyn and set off a chase through the hallways, forced the school into lockdown and terrified kids, teachers, and parents.
“Any day would’ve been upsetting but coming Wednesday was just a lot,” said Mara Getz Sheftel, a parent of two students at the school.
Then, on Thursday, two guns were discovered outside city schools — one was a ghost gun in a bookbag allegedly dropped by a student outside a Brooklyn high school, and the other was at a construction site outside a Bronx elementary school. So far this year 20 firearms have been found at schools in the five boroughs.
Police say they don’t have any evidence that anyone wanted to harm children in schools.
Still, the scary episodes have stirred fears among some parents and kids and recharged debates about how to keep city schools safe.
Education Department spokeswoman Jenna Lyle said the DOE is working “with our agency partners at the FDNY and NYPD to explore all possible options to make certain that our schools remain as safe as possible in all situations and continue to serve as safe havens for our children – places our students seek refuge and support from when they need it.”
The incident at P.S. 118 in Brooklyn unfolded Wednesday morning when a woman who police described as as “emotionally disturbed” ran through a back door of the Park Slope elementary school as kids were arriving around 8:30am, cops said.
Adina Lerner said while she was dropping her kids off she heard the principal “screaming… then I could see she started chasing somebody.”
The school immediately went on lockdown and police were called, parents said.
“My kids each hid in their teacher’s closets… my daughter got home and said, ‘my back hurts from hiding in the closet,'” recounted Lerner.
Police said the woman was detained and taken to United Methodist Hospital for observation.
Lerner and Sheftel both said they feel “really lucky” nothing worse happened, and credited the school’s “amazing” staff and principal for their swift response.
Thursday’s gun scare was set in motion when an 18-year-old Brooklyn high school student alerted school officials that her boyfriend was planning to bring a gun to campus, police said. When school safety agents at the old Boys High School building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, which houses three schools, searched the perimeter, they found a bookbag with a 9mm “ghost gun” and ammo, cops said.
Later that evening, another firearm was found by construction workers at a work site outside Public School 67 in the Bronx, according to police and school safety sources.
DOE Executive Director of Safety and Youth Development Mark Rampersant called the rash of firearms a “real problem.”
Mona Davids, a parent and head of the NYC School Safety Coalition, a group that’s pushed for additional metal detectors and school police, said “as a parent, I’m afraid of there being a shooting in a New York City school with so many firearms seized by school safety agents.”
Outside the Boys High School campus, students said they felt safe at school despite the gun scare, and pushed for broader community solutions to stem the wave of firearms.
“I think a lot of times it’s an issue of mental health first,” said 22-year-old Tiffany Smith.
“We need more programs to help students that are having a mental health crisis, especially if they are from a community where you have access to guns,” she added.
Sam Encarnacion, 20, said the metal detectors at his school’s entrance reassure him that a weapon won’t make it inside. “I don’t feel the government or the school can really help us. I think it’s more of a community effort. That how it needs to be handled,” he said.
Parents at P.S. 118 argue there’s more that can be done to keep strangers from entering schools, saying they’ve pushed the for years to lock the school’s front door.
The DOE’s current policy requires the main entrance to stay unlocked in case of emergencies, but mandates that all other entrances are locked, according to a spokeswoman. Schools chancellor David Banks said Wednesday he’s considering revising the front door policy and keeping all doors locked.
