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A search is underway by police for a teenage suspect following Thursday’s stabbing at the New Rochelle High School, which came a day after a teenage student suffered a laceration to his hand during an altercation and little more than a week after junior Valaree Schwab was fatally stabbed outside Dunkin’ Donuts on North Avenue during a separate incident.
Police said that the teenage suspect they seek is believed to have been the one who was assaulted by several students at Gemelli Pizzeria on Wednesday afternoon.
In response, city and school officials announced there would be an increased uniformed police presence at the high school for the foreseeable future. On Friday, uniformed officers could be seen at every entrance to the school in nearly a dozen squad cars. There was also an increased presence on North Avenue and outside Iona College.
No incidents were reported by police on Friday before school dismissed.
There will be a public forum hosted next week at the Whitney Young Auditorium at the New Rochelle High School at 7 p.m. on Tuesday next week to address the recent rash of violence. New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson said that myriad of topics will be covered by city and school officials during next week’s scheduled comprehensive joint city-school review.
“We will look comprehensively on all policies that may or may not have had a bearing on what has occurred,” he said. “We’re not pre-judging the outcome of (the review). We want to look carefully at the landscape in its totality and make sure any measures we take are based in research, fact and data.”
Bramson called the past two weeks “a devastating period of days for New Rochelle.”
“For all of us, and for me as a parent of young children, we are all deeply concerned (with recent events), and that’s why it’s incumbent to come together and examine this question as comprehensively as we can, and to take any steps that we can to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again.
“All of us are facing fear, or recognize that others are facing fear, but we should recognize that a school district and community is not defined by any single incident or cluster of incidents. They’re shaped by contact with thousands of other people each day. By any objective measure, we are a safe school district and city.
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