Mayor Zohran Mamdani has ordered an investigation into how the man accused of killing Brooklyn jogger Katie Suarez obtained a job in the city’s public school system despite a documented history of psychiatric problems.
“I have asked my team to conduct a full review of this matter,” Mamdani said at a news conference Monday. The city Department of Education has suspended Sayed Mohassib, 27, the mayor said, and the city is offering counseling to students and families at PS 200 in Bath Beach, where Mohassib worked as a paraprofessional.
Mohassib was arrested Saturday and charged with murder, tampering with physical evidence and criminal possession of a weapon.
Suarez, a 28-year-old TD Bank employee, was stabbed in the neck Oct. 30 while running on the Shore Parkway. She died a few days later. According to media reports, Mohassib returned to work in the days following the alleged murder.
The case has drawn attention from elected officials and community members, who have expressed concerns about how the city screens public school employees.
“I say to myself, ‘Imagine what could have happened there with the children,’” said Cristina Romero, 47, who has two children at the school. “Why was this person there? Why wasn’t this person evaluated? Why were our children put in danger?”
City payroll records show Mohassib was employed by the DOE beginning in April 2019. The department paid him as an hourly support staff through fiscal year 2023, then listed him as a paraprofessional in fiscal years 2024 and 2025. The DOE has not confirmed the specific responsibilities of his job at PS 200.
But during the same period, questions were raised about Mohassib’s mental state, according to a statement from local officials and an NYPD spokesperson.
In the fall of 2022, Mohassib was placed on military leave after a brief assignment with the New York Police Department, the police spokesperson said. But, according to elected officials, Mohassib was released from the Marines shortly after for psychiatric reasons. The Marines did not respond to Gothamist’s request for comment.
On January 11, 2023, Mohassib requested reinstatement to the NYPD. But several supervisors noted that he “looked disheveled” and was behaving disturbingly, the police spokesperson said. The New York Police Department denied his request and he was taken to Bellevue Hospital.
“If the New York Police Department deemed him unfit, why then would he be deemed fit to serve in a children’s classroom? said City Council member Kayla Santosuosso, whose district includes the school where Mohassib worked, adding that the DOE needs to “take a hard look at how he was able to pass DOE scrutiny.”
DOE applicants are subject to criminal background searches, but there is no assessment of their psychiatric history and problems that arose during their employment could go undetected, said Jennifer Weber, an education policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
“Once you’re kind of in the system, they don’t necessarily re-evaluate your role in the system or your records in the system,” she said.
Jay Brown, president of Community Education Council 21, which borders the district that includes PS 200, said the case represents a systemic failure.
“We don’t demonize people who struggle with mental illness,” Brown said. “But in this case, there were warning signs.”
State Sen. Andrew Gounardes, one of the elected officials who issued the joint statement, said he wants Mamdani’s review to determine how the DOE can work with other city agencies that have “amber or red flags regarding applicants.”
Nicole Brownstein, a DOE spokeswoman, said student safety is “our top priority.”
“We support the NYPD in their investigation, but this is necessary,” Brownstein said.
The mayor’s office has not said who will lead the review or when it will conclude.
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