A 16-year-old boy was slashed across the face by a schoolmate wielding a razor inside a Brooklyn classroom on the very first day of school, leaving him with a wound running from his ear to the corner of his mouth. Police placed the attack at approximately 11:41 a.m. Thursday at the Brooklyn School for Career Development on Clermont Avenue near Atlantic Avenue in Fort Greene, according to law enforcement.
Medics rushed the teenager to Methodist Hospital for treatment, as first reported by the New York Daily News. Emergency personnel took him specifically to NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in Park Slope for treatment of a facial laceration, according to News 12 Brooklyn. Police said 19-year-old Tyler Smith, a Crown Heights resident, was arrested in connection with the slashing and has been charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon on school grounds. His arraignment was pending as of Thursday.
How a Razor Got Past School Security
The case has drawn scrutiny because a notice posted outside the school states that students are scanned for weapons, while the attack involved a razor inside the school, per the same News 12 Brooklyn report. The Brooklyn School for Career Development operates as P.S. K753.
A separate 2016 case involved weapons being caught by security on Clermont Avenue. On the first day of school in September 2016, a 15-year-old student was arrested there after scanners detected a loaded .22-caliber handgun in his backpack, according to Bklyner. That earlier case provides another example of an opening-day weapon scare, though this week's razor attack raises a different question: whether existing scanning protocols are built to catch bladed instruments as reliably as firearms.
Why an Adult Was in a High School Classroom
Smith's presence in a classroom alongside a 16-year-old is not itself unusual within District 75. New York State Education Law guarantees public education to residents until the end of the school year in which they turn 21.
Weapon screening and metal detection in New York City public schools falls under the NYPD School Safety Division, which uses stationary scanners and mobile scanning units. That authority traces back to 1998, when primary operational control over school safety officers shifted from the Department of Education to the NYPD, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Part of a Wider Pattern Across Brooklyn Schools
The incident lands amid a string of weapon discoveries at Brooklyn schools this year. In a separate incident, a 17-year-old fled after security agents detected a loaded automatic pistol in his backpack during screening at the Frank J. Macchiarola Educational Complex in Sheepshead Bay, as Hoodline previously reported. And in April, school safety agents confiscated a firearm from a student inside a Bushwick high school, another sign of the ongoing challenge of keeping weapons out of Brooklyn classrooms.
Under New York Penal Law § 265.01-a, criminal possession of a weapon on school grounds is classified as a Class E felony, carrying a potential sentence of up to four years in prison upon conviction. It remains unclear how the razor entered the Fort Greene school, a gap that is likely to fuel further debate over whether current detection methods are adequate.
