He allegedly knifed a young woman and left her for dead on a Brooklyn waterfront path, then went right back to school to work with little kids.
Sayed Mohassib, a 27-year-old school teacher’s aide and former NYPD officer, was back among children within days of the October 30 stabbing of bank teller Katie Suarez, according to reports. The elementary school where he worked sits just blocks from the waterfront promenade where 28-year-old Suarez was killed.
Staffers knew something was off, The New York Post reported. Coworkers told cops the aide was babbling and behaving strangely, sources told the Post, though those tips didn’t crack the case. Kids noticed, too. Two youngsters said they spotted him muttering to himself and looking on edge.
Mohassib was arrested Saturday and ordered held without bail on charges of second-degree murder, evidence tampering and weapons possession. Education officials suspended him and vowed to move to fire him, pending the outcome of the case.
Suarez had just finished her shift at TD Bank and was running beside the Belt Parkway near Bay 17th Street around 8 p.m. when she was stabbed at least twice in the neck.
She had just told her parents she was minutes from their meet-up spot. When she never showed, her father went searching and found her bleeding on the path. After being rushed to the hospital, she was declared brain dead and died after being taken off life support, her family said. Five people received her organs, sources said. She was running after she had started training for the New York City marathon.
Surveillance video helped detectives identify the suspect, authorities said. Cameras allegedly caught him near the path and later fleeing the area. Roughly 15 minutes after he got home, he was on camera again, hauling out bags of trash, according to the criminal complaint.
Investigators were picking through a sanitation facility Sunday in the hunt for evidence.
Mohassib told detectives he blacked out and came to on a bench, covered in blood, according to sources and court papers.
He allegedly admitted to prowling the path with a knife, walking to the Verrazzano Bridge and back, because he believed “people were going to come and kill his family.” But he insisted he never stabbed anyone.
He also allegedly confessed to dumping the blade and his bloody clothes. Cops found a bloodstain in his apartment that he said he tried to scrub away.
The red flags were flying long before the incident.
Mohassib lasted only about four to six weeks as an NYPD rookie in 2022 before leaving for the military, which reportedly booted him over mental health issues. When he tried to get his badge back, he turned up disheveled and erratic and was carted off to Bellevue. The NYPD said no, and he landed back at the Department of Education.
Then, in September 2024, his own mother and sister told cops he had threatened to “chop them up,” sources said. He was taken to Coney Island Hospital.
Police believe the attack was random. Suarez and Mohassib attended Brooklyn College at the same time, but there’s no known link between them.
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