THREAT SCHOOL IS ON GUARD
Detectors at Beacon after hate & shoot scrawl
An elite Manhattan high school was on edge Tuesday as students entered through metal detectors installed after racist graffiti threatening a mass shooting was found in a bathroom stall.
Officials claimed the detectors were added at M479 Beacon HS in Hell’s Kitchen as part of a citywide “random scanning” process, but students and parents linked them to swastikas and the messages “I hate blacks” and “I will shoot up the school” that were found scrawled Thursday in the bathroom with a marker.
“I’m on drugs RN, I have no point to live, I will take down everyone with me (if they are black),” the graffiti read in all capital letters, according to images obtained by The Post.
Police maintained a line for the metal detectors Tuesday morning that stretched down West 44th Street to Tenth Avenue as an NYPD School Unit vehicle was parked outside with flashing lights.
A teacher entering the school said she was “disturbed” by the threats and security, adding, “I think we all are,” and a senior noted she was “really disappointed” in the security measures, which she said were also implemented last year, for only a day.
The “highly selective college-preparatory” school was ranked as the nation’s 548th-best high school and the 30th-best New York City high school by US News & World Report. More than three out of five students are minorities and 36% of students are economically disadvantaged, according to the report.
“I was actually very shocked about it because Beacon is like a very diverse school,” Janiya, 15, told The Post. “There are a lot of black cultures and ethnicities there, so I wouldn’t think something like that could actually happen.”
The ninth-grader said the Thursday discovery had left her and her classmates “looking over your shoulders everywhere you go.”
The threatening and hateful vandalism left Emily, a fellow 15year-old ninth-grader, shaken.
“It was very hurtful, especially for us as Afro-Latina and black people, and it made me scared at first because you never know what can happen in schools,” Emily said. “There could be a shooting.”
Another girl, who declined to give her name, said she was “sad” and “angry” about the graffiti, even as she doubted the threat.
“It’s not great, obviously. It’s kind of dangerous to see that,” the student said. “I don’t think it’s real. I think it’s someone playing,” acknowledging that the graffiti “could hurt a lot of people and affect them mentally and let them feel unsafe in school.”
Principal Johnny A. Ventura sent a series of emails to families and students about the incident.
“As a Black Latino, my first set of emotions upon hearing and seeing this was anger, and then sadness that someone at our school would choose to write this,” he wrote, according to The New York Times.
“We embrace diversity and inclusion at Beacon. A threat to one of us is a threat to all of us.”
Asked Monday about the metal detectors, Department of Education spokesman Nathaniel Styer told The Post it was “part of our random scanning protocols.”
There was no word from police if any students had been arrested in connection with the graffiti.