MURDER IN THE CLASSROOM
Kid kills ‘bully’ during history
In t he middle of history class, Bronx student Abel Cedeno, 18, allegedly used this switchblade to kill Matthew McCree, 15, whom sources say was bullying Cedeno.
A bullied Bronx teen pulled a switchblade on one of his tormentors in the middle of history class Wednesday and fatally stabbed him in the chest in front of a dozen terrified schoolmates, police sources said.
He then turned the blade on a student who intervened and stabbed him in the chest, too, leaving that boy in critical condition, the sources said.
It was the first student homicide inside a city school in nearly 25 years and ignited calls for stricter security.
The mayhem erupted at around 10:50 a.m. at the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation in East Tremont, where senior Abel Cedeno, 18, had been bullied since classes began earlier this month.
Cedeno was sitting in his third-period US-history class when he was hit in the head by a flying pen and demanded to know who had thrown it, witnesses said. Matthew McCree, 15, who sources said regularly picked on Cedeno, stepped forward and took the blame, claiming it was an accident.
Cedeno pulled out a 3-inch, Schrade switchblade from his front pocket and McCree tried to punch him, said a classmate, Jomarlyn Colon, 16. Cedeno plunged the blade into McCree’s chest, she said.
Another classmate, Ariane LaBoy — who was close friends with McCree — tried to help his pal and was stabbed in the chest, as well. “He went crazy,” Colon said of Cedeno.
Students and a teacher struggled to stanch McCree’s gushing wound, as Cedeno walked out of the room.
“They were holding towels on Matthew — Mr. Kennedy and kids. All the kids were crying,” Colon said.
A counselor confronted Cedeno in the hallway and convinced him to hand over the knife, NYPD Chief of Department Robert Boyce said at a press conference.
“He then walked into the assistant principal’s office and sat there and the police were called,” Boyce said.
McCree was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Barnabas Hospital, and LaBoy was in critical but stable condition there Wednesday evening. Cops took Cedeno into custody and
questioned him at the 48th Precinct station house, where he said an ongoing beef with his victims made him snap, Boyce said.
“They were going back and forth for about two weeks — since school started,” Boyce said. “It escalated today after some back-and-forth in the classroom.”
Kevin Sampson, the school’s dean — who performed CPR at the scene before medics arrived — confirmed the bullying motive.
“It was about what it’s always about, bullying,” Sampson told The New York Times.
A friend of Cedeno’s, who gave her name as Tanaisha B., said he was specifically targeted for being “flamboyant.”
“Maybe it could’ve rubbed off the wrong way on certain boys, especially with their age. You know, they make fun of that a lot,” she said.
“They were harassing him, and that’s when he did what he did.”
As Cedeno was walked out of the police station in handcuffs Wednesday night, a reporter asked if had been bullied.
Cedeno mouthed “yes” just before he was loaded into a unmarked police car, headed for his arraignment.
Cedeno, whose black hair had red highlights, was wearing a pink T-shirt, blue jeans and a gray zip-up hoodie.
He was charged with murder, attempted murder and weapons violations, police said.
“He’s not aggressive in any sort of way, so it’s really shocking to hear that he was pushed to the point where he thought he needed to do something,” his friend Tanaisha B. said.
But McCree “wasn’t a bad kid” either, she said. “He was a jokester, all of that. He was a good kid,” Tanaisha said.
It’s the first time a student has been killed inside a school since 1993, when a 15-year-old stabbed a classmate over a pair of sunglasses at JHS 25 on the Lower East Side.
Mayor de Blasio pledged Wednesday to tighten security at the Bronx school, which does not have metal detectors, and said he would implement scanning Thursday. “This is something every parent every morning worries about — the safety of their child,” de Blasio said during a press conference at the police station.
Schools get metal detectors one of two ways: the principal requests them or the NYPD unilaterally installs them if it deems the move necessary.
The Urban Assembly School serves sixth through 12th grades and is co-located with PS 67.
No administrators from either school have requested metal detectors, and crimes on the campus did not necessitate NYPD in- tervention, according to Department of Education officials.
“This is a school that was — it was determined that it did not need metal detectors,” NYPD Chief of Community Affairs Joanne Jaffe said.
But just 55 percent of students reported feeling safe on the campus — 28 points below the citywide average — according to a DOE survey taken last year.
The school’s academic record is also poor: Just 5 percent of its students are proficient in math and 13 percent in English, according to last year’s state exam results.