Families Of Bronx School Stabbing Victims To Sue City: Reports

NEW YORK CITY — The families of two teens stabbed at a Bronx high school last month are planning to sue the city, according to the New York Daily News. The lawsuits are expected to blame the Sept. 27 attack on lax security and poor staff training, news reports say.

The family of Matthew McCree, the 15-year-old killed by Abel Cedeno, his classmate at the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation, filed a notice of claim Monday against the Department of Education and the NYPD, the Daily News reported. The family is demanding $25 million.

Cedeno also stabbed and seriously wounded 16-year-old Ariane Laboy during their history class, police have said. Laboy's family plans to file separate papers Tuesday announcing their intent to sue the city, the Daily News reported.

"There was a recipe for disaster at the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation," Sanford Rubenstein, the McCree family's attorney, told the Daily News.

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Officials will review the legal papers, a city law department spokesman told Patch, calling the stabbing incident "tragic."

Cedeno was charged with murder and other crimes after stabbing his classmates with a three-inch switchblade during a history class, police said. Cedeno, who is bisexual, told the Daily News he snapped after enduring years of bullying about his sexuality.

The Department of Education installed metal detectors at the school the day after the stabbing, and city officials promised to train teachers on how to spot and report bullying.

But the families' lawsuits allege the city didn't do enough to prevent the attack, according to the Daily News.

"First, metal detectors were not installed in the school in which in 2016, 81% of teachers reported not feeling safe and 45% of students did not feel safe and there were two incidents of harassment with weapons," Rubenstein told the Daily News.

De Blasio, who attended McCree's wake, said violence in city schools has dropped for five straight years. Most schools don't have metal detectors "by the choice of the school community," he said.

"Metal detectors are not a perfect tool, because we're still talking about human beings," de Blasio said at an unrelated news conference Tuesday. "Our job is to make the schools safe."

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