The former NYPD officer accused of killing a Brooklyn jogger returned to work at a city public school just days after the slaying. Law-enforcement sources also revealed Monday that he had previously killed a family pet.
“You don’t know who is teaching our kids. It’s just shocking,” Jasmine Cotto, the parent of first- and second-grade students at Brooklyn’s PS 200, told The Post Monday.
“He came here the next day like nothing happened,” Cotto said of accused killer Sayed Mohassib, who was working as a teacher’s aide at the school when he allegedly stabbed 28-year-old runner Katie Suarez at random.
The killing occurred Friday, Oct. 30. While police searched for Suarez’s fugitive attacker, Mohassib was reportedly back in the classroom with students the following Monday—just three days later. He was not arrested until Saturday.
“It’s crazy because what if he came here and started killing kids or the teachers?” Cotto said outside the school. “That’s what went through my mind.”
Mohassib, 27, secured a paraprofessional position at PS 200 despite a history of disturbing behavior. That record included his discharge from the Marines and the NYPD’s decision to reject his attempt to return to the department after he served as an officer for roughly six weeks.
His mother also told police that he had once killed the family pet, which sources said was either a cat or a dog.
Prosecutors accuse Mohassib of attacking Suarez without warning as she ran along a trail at a popular Brooklyn waterfront promenade. He allegedly told police he brought a knife to the area because he believed someone would kill his family if he did not.
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Investigators identified him through surveillance video showing him entering and leaving the park around the time of the attack. They also used facial-recognition technology on photographs submitted for his government and public-service jobs.
Mohassib joined the NYPD in 2022 but left after about six weeks to enlist in the US Marine Corps, according to sources.
The Marines dismissed him within a month over concerns about his mental health. When he later sought to rejoin the NYPD in January 2023, the department rejected him after he appeared “disheveled,” sources said.
By that time, he was working as an hourly support employee for the city Department of Education. He was hired as a paraprofessional in 2024—the same year police responded to his Bensonhurst home after a report that he had threatened to chop up members of his family.
DOE officials said Monday that Mohassib had been fired, following Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s call for a comprehensive investigation into how he came to work in the city school system.
Meanwhile, parents at PS 200 said they were stunned as details of the case came to light.
“My daughter saw him on TV last night and told me, ‘Dad, I see him every day!’” parent Joseph Hasbani told The Post. “She said, ‘He’s in my school. We see him every single day.’ I said, ‘Wow! That’s really insane.’ I hope this doesn’t happen again at any other public school.”
