Students arriving at Benjamin Cardozo High School in Bayside on Friday, Sept. 19, saw increased security a day after one of their classmates was arrested for bringing a loaded semiautomatic handgun onto campus.
The 16-year-old boy was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and making terrorist threats after he posted an image of what appeared to be a schoolwork with white lettering saying “Ts Gmt…boutta shoot the school up,” at 10:17 a.m. on Sept. 18.
Meta, the parent company of Instagram, saw the threat and alerted the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center of a potential school shooter. The FBI identified the phone number behind the Instagram account and geolocated it to a cell phone at Cardozo High, and swiftly relayed to the NYPD’s Call Center. Police from the 111th Precinct in Bayside responded to the Cardozo campus at 57-00 223rd St. and were led by NYPD school safety agents to a conference room where the sophomore was sitting with his backpack and cell phone and he was taken into custody.
“One of the student’s parents was then contacted and consented to a search of the student’s belongings,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. “In his backpack, officers recovered a black semi-automatic handgun, a 9mm Taurus GX4. The gun was loaded with 13 rounds in the magazine.”
Mayor Eric Adams joined his commissioner at One Police Plaza to brief the media on Thursday afternoon.
“We potentially saved the lives of a lot of students and staff today and I don’t want to imagine a world where we would be making a different announcement right now,” Adams said. “I also want to mention another life saved today, a 16-year-old child who had a gun. Because if that 16-year-old had carried out this act he either would have ended up dead or in jail for many years. This was a failure of a society that allowed a 16-year-old to get close to shooting up a school and potentially killing classmates and teachers.”
The mayor then pivoted to what went right at Cardozo High on Thursday.
“I want to thank the brave officers who responded quickly and our federal partners who coordinated and made sure that the information was in the hands of our law enforcement agencies here on the ground,” Adams said. “The system worked, this is what we asked for, and this is what coordination looks like.”
FBI officials agreed with the mayor.
“The NYPD deployed to the high school to address the potential threat, which led to a successful outcome,” FBI New York said in a statement. This swift response demonstrated the importance of close partnerships and the critical need for information-sharing to ensure our city and students are protected against unnecessary acts of violence.”
The city’s Department of Education said the safety of students and staff are the agency’s top priority and weapons have absolutely no place in schools.
“Thanks to our law enforcement partners, a gun was quickly recovered after receiving information about a social media post,” The DOE said in a statement Friday. “All students and staff are safe. We are offering additional security and supports to the school community today — and in the coming days — and are working closely with the NYPD regarding follow-up actions.”
The police commissioner added a personal note.
“I will be honest. As a mother of two young school-age boys, I am shaken. But as your police commissioner, I am resolute in ensuring that the NYPD does everything in our power to keep our children safe,” Tisch said. “I have a message for all parents today. While this incident is terrifying, it is an example of the law enforcement apparatus at the federal and local levels doing everything right. It is literally the system, our protocols, our training and our processes working just as they should.”
As school was dismissed on Friday afternoon, Gurshan, a 15-year-old sophomore at Cardozo, talked about how surprised he was to learn a schoolmate had brought a gun to school the day before.
“This is the first time I’ve heard of something this serious happening at this school,” he said. “It’s just really scary to think that someone thought about harming others.”
He said he had no problem with the metal scanners although he heard other students complaining that it took too long.
“In my personal opinion, I think it’s best that we have metal detectors when we enter school every day,” Gurshan said.
A mother named Ali had come to pick up her sophomore and senior after school and she admitted to having mixed feelings about the metal detectors.
“They should have it but at the same time I’m not happy about it because that’s not the way I was brought up,” she said. “And I don’t know how it will affect the kids.”
Mohamed Gazi noticed the increased police presence around campus when he came to pick up his freshman student after school.
“It was good to see them using metal detectors but I think they should put in a scanning system like they have in airports,” Gazi said. “That way they can just scan the bag and not make you late.”
Additional reporting by Athena Dawson.
