NBC New York’s Jessica Cunnington reports.
New videos are raising questions about the safety of schools across New York City -- several disturbing videos show students in violent brawls and school safety agents unable to stop them.
The NYPD is looking into five incidents in and around Cardozo High School since the first day of school. An entire Instagram page is dedicated to posting fights that happen at the school in Queens.
About two miles from there, a gun was found this week at Van Buren High School. And on Staten Island, a video posted by Councilmember Joe Borelli from Wagner High School in Seaview where a dean got involved.
It's part of a trend that the school safety union says they've warned the city about.
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"The only borough that has not reported this level of violence has been Manhattan. But the school year is still young," said Gregory Floyd, president of Local 237, which represent school safety agents.
Floyd says the union pushed the city for more agents, knowing they would need them, but between retirement, attrition, and the city's vaccine mandate, schools across the city lost more than 1,400 agents.
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"The shortage of school safety is the city's failure to plan for the opening of this school year," Floyd said.
Parents and advocates rallied in the Bronx on Friday demanding more school safety agents after six weapons were discovered in two days across city schools.
Most of the weapons this week were found on Wednesday: a loaded .22 caliber revolver was found at Mott Haven High School; a .32 revolver was found at Stevenson High; officers seized a BB gun from Bathgate High; a 17-year-old student had a loaded Glock in his waistband at FDR High School.
"Sometimes the day might come. I fear that I won't see them coming back," parent Leonardo Coello said Friday.
The DOE says besides working the NYPD every day to provide more safety agents and scanning where necessary, they are also planning ahead for next year by hiring 500 social workers and 100 school psychologists for next September.
