NYC to Increase Random Metal Detector Scanning in Schools, After Five Students Found with Guns

      by Yehudit Garmaise

     Since COVID began, New York City has seen a rapid increase in the presence of weapons, Mayor Bill de Blasio said this morning, and now that problem has spread to the city’s public schools, where five different students in schools citywide were found to be carrying handguns.

       Just last Wednesday, the NYPD just took into custody a student who attends Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School, at 5800 20th Ave., who while he in the midst of a physical fight with another student, was found to have a gun on in the waistband of his pants, according to the NYC School Safety Coalition.

    “The NYPD has done an amazing job with the most gun arrests we've seen in decades, but we have a problem in the city: There's too many weapons out there,” said the mayor, who said that the city will be increasing its use unannounced metal detector screenings.

      “It's something that I wish was not happening, but it is,” said NYPD Chief of Department Rodney Harrison. “Unfortunately, we do see, too often, a lot of our youth carrying guns. But the last thing we need to see is somebody entering a school site with a firearm.

      “And that's why it's so important that we have our school safety agents, our metal detectors in the appropriate places doing unannounced scanning like we saw at one of the schools last week where we were able to recover a .380-caliber firearm.”

     “Our goal is to keep our students and community safe together,” said Ross Porter, who thanked the school safety agents who retrieved the weapons from students. “I think what's important to recognize is that we got those weapons off the street, [so that shows] that our systems are working.

       A reporter, however, worried that a lower-than-usual number of school safety agents might be on the job right now, as a result of the refusal of those to comply with the mayor’s mandate to get vaccinated.

   The mayor responded by saying that 92% of school safety agents have been vaccinated and are at work.

      The mayor also mentioned that youth coordination officers and neighborhood coordination officers are helping out at schools that do not currently have the maximum amount of coverage of school safety agents. 

   Chief Harrison pointed out that the city has 3,200 safety school agents at 1,400 school sites throughout the city.

     “So, I'm content where we stand with our school safety agents right now,” Chief Harrison said. “I'm optimistic that we're doing all we can do to protect the students traveling back and forth to school.”