Two stabbings in two days at New York City schools, police say

A 12-year-old girl was slashed in the leg at a Bronx high school on Wednesday, a day after a 15-year-old boy stabbed another boy at a Brooklyn high school, police said.

The event in the Bronx, at James M. Kieran High School in the Soundview section, occurred shortly after 9:30 a.m., police said. Officers responding to a 911 call found the victim with a laceration to her right leg, police said.

The girl was taken to Jacobi Hospital, where she was in stable condition, police said. A knife was found at the scene and a suspect was arrested Wednesday afternoon, police said. It was unclear whether the person was a student.

Jenna Lyle, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Education, said in a statement that movement in the school building had been restricted after the attack and that it would be scanned for weapons. The school’s other students were safe, she said.

“The safety and well-being of our students is our top priority, and dangerous items have no place in our schools,” Ms Lyle said.

The attack occurred a day after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed in the torso around 9:20 a.m. Tuesday at Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood, police said. He was taken to Maimonides Medical Center, where police said he was in stable condition.

A second 15-year-old boy was arrested in the attack and charged with attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.

The James M. Kieran School, also known as Junior High School 123, has approximately 540 students; Edward R. Murrow High School has approximately 3,600. Also no so-called scanning school, where students have to go through metal detectors upon entry.

In a separate school incident on Wednesday that did not result in injuries, a 16-year-old boy was in custody after being found with a gun at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the Bronx. It was not immediately clear whether metal detectors are used at the school.

The use of metal detectors in the city’s schools is a contentious issue, pitting public safety concerns against civil rights considerations. Specific information about how many of the city’s more than 1,800 schools are using these devices is not immediately available. Ms Lyle referred questions on the subject to police, who declined to provide a figure.

In a report from last year the New York Civil Liberties Unionwhich has long sought detailed information from police about which schools use the detectors and when, estimated that almost 200,000 students had attended schools with scanning since 2016. Most were black or Hispanic.

Such scanning, the report said, puts students exposed to it “at risk of harassment, invasive searches and fraught interactions with police.”

But Greg Floyd, the president of Teamsters Local 237, which represents school safety officers, said metal detectors were necessary in some schools and that those who disagreed did not understand how dangerous schools could be.

According to the most recent data from City Hall, crime in the city’s schools rose 16 percent in the 2023 fiscal year, which ended June 30, compared to the previous fiscal year.

Mr. Floyd said that students leaving the building at the end of the day after the stabbing death of Edward R. Murrow were subjected to a “reverse scan” that revealed knives, stun guns, box cutters and pepper spray.

“Crime in schools continues to increase,” he said.

Troy Closson contributed reporting.