Gangs, guns & violence terrorizing schoolkids

Violence is exploding in and around city schools, with shootings, stabbings and killings on the rise.

Three students have been slain so far in the 2022-23 school year, and at least 18 others were stabbed or shot as gang beefs and ever-younger gun-toting kids take advantage of the state’s juvenilejustice reforms, experts said.

In the previous school year, one child was killed and eight were shot or stabbed, data show.

Dismissal can mean death for some city schoolkids, with most of the stabbings and shootings unfolding after the afternoon bell rings.

“We’ve really seen sort of this cavalcade of chaos that has been raining down on us because of bad laws and young people who are disconnected from responsible behavior,” said Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon.

One Queens teacher told The

Post that while fights occur in schools, “There is no comparison to what happens outside of school.”

“Kids are on edge in the classroom every eighth period for fear of what will transpire in the neighborhood on the way home,” the teacher said.

Shateema Watson, 34, knew how dangerous things were becoming.

Watson tried to convince her brother Nyheem Wright and his twin brother, Raheem, who attended Brooklyn’s Liberation Diploma Plus HS, to move to Georgia from Coney Island with her to be safer.

She was too late. On Jan. 20, Nyheem was chased by six attackers at dismissal time and fatally stabbed a half-mile from his school, and across the street from PS 329, in what police believe was a fight over a girl.

The beef began earlier in the day and may have been sparked by a previous clash between two female students.

“We just really wanted to snatch them up and show them a new way of life,” Watson, 34, told The Post this week.

In November, Mark Greene, 18, was gunned down at a bus stop half a block from North Queens Community HS in Kew Gardens Hills in what cops suspect was a gang conflict.

In another gang-related tragedy, Unique Smith, 15, was shot dead Sept. 7 at a downtown Brooklyn park just after school at Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School, about four blocks away.

Stray-bullet horror

In last school year’s lone fatality, Angellyh Yambo, 16, was hit by an alleged gangbanger’s stray bullet just a block from University Prep Charter School in the South Bronx while walking home from class.

“A majority of the shootings around schools do have a gang element,” according to a police source who noted “most of the beefs are wrapped around drill

rap fueled by social media.”

Law enforcement, meanwhile. is hamstrung by weak Albany laws regarding dangerous minors, authorities said.

New York’s Raise the Age law means kids under 18 can no longer be tried as adults in criminal court for most offenses, making it nearly impossible to be held accountable for serious crimes, said McMahon, who lamented, “They’ve gotten a message that it’s OK to carry and use guns.”

Fellow Democrat Melinda Katz, the Queens DA, echoed the call to reform Raise the Age.

“Just as there is no arguing that reform was long overdue, it is obvious that those reforms have had unintended consequences that threaten public safety and need to be addressed urgently,” a Katz spokesman said.

Violent kids and gangs are keenly aware of the loophole, authorities contend.

“The older gang members intent on a bad act use the juveniles to hold the gun. Because if he or she gets caught, they won’t have consequences,” the source said of Raise the Age.

“Nobody in their right mind, who has a half a heart, wants to see any juvenile get arrested . . . But there are some kids — some — who have to be taken off the streets for the safety of the community all the way around.”

Some 10% of shooting victims in the city are now juveniles, the police source said. And the number of gun arrests among those 18 and under has jumped to 448 in 2022, a 64% increase from 2017, when there were 275.

Suspects get younger

Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission, which helps craft NYPD policy, said the age when teens first picked up guns used to be 16 or 17.

“Now it’s getting to be 13 or 14, if not 12, so you have guns permeating the youth culture and you also see guns on social media,” Aborn said.

Charmaine Patterson, a school nurse who rotates among high schools in The Bronx and Manhattan, said she sees students trapped in a world of gangs and violence.

“They talk about how they know things, but can’t say anything because then they’ll get hurt, or their family or little sister or little brother will get hurt,” she said.

A school safety agent who works in Brooklyn and has more than 20 years on the job is a witness to the rising violence.

“I don’t want to sit back and sugarcoat it. The crime is definitely increasing and it’s getting worse,” she said as NYPD stats shows an astonishing array of weapons on school grounds.

Jackie Rowe-Adams, the head of the anti-violence group Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E., said parents had to pay more attention to their children and that “you can’t just blame the police, the mayor . . . everybody’s going to have to step up now because this is very serious.”