About 3315 weapons have been recovered in New York City schools since the start of this academic year
This is up by 80% since 2019 after the Police Department say there were over 1,800 dangerous weapons like BB guns, tasers and knives recovered from city schools as at this time in 2019.
“It makes me feel scared. It makes me have another reason why I want to move out of New York,” said Jasmine Hazard, who has two children enrolled in city schools.
One of Hazard’s sons, Christian Henry said “Last year, a kid had a BB gun and got suspended, but he’s back now.”
He said there’s a safety agent at the front door of his school, but he’d feel safer if they did more on the premises.
“The school should check people’s bags going in,” said Henry.
When Mayor Eric Adams was asked about the increase, he made the following statement:
“I’m going to be rolling out in a few days a device that we’re testing that allows us in a humane way to identify guns and weapons. Everyone is asking about this device, we want to make sure we test it properly. We’re currently in the process of testing and we’re going to place it in school to identify weapons.”
President of teamsters local 237 which represents school safety agents, Gregory Floyd lamented on the lack of punishment.
“The reason why they think children are coming to school with more weapons is because the gangs are giving weapons to younger children and there’s no punishment, there’s no penalty.
“They go to family court and they’re immediately released. The other children are carrying weapons because they know gang members are carrying weapons.”
The Department of Education said that the data shows the partnership between schools and school safety agents is working because it stops weapons and other dangerous items from entering schools.
