NYPD sends more cops to city schools to combat surge in violence: sources

As the Daily News has learned, more cops will be covering school layoffs as the NYPD battles a frightening spike in teen violence across the city.

NYPD Chief Jeffrey Maddrey on Thursday ordered precinct chiefs to assemble a team of officers to “cover layoffs at troubled schools,” according to an interagency memo shared with The News.

Maddry called the initiative “total” — a departmental patrol tactic commonly used during the summer months, when dozens of cops swarm high-crime areas to keep order.

More public transit officers will be sent to bus stops and train stations near troubled schools, Maddry said, “after consultation with precinct supervisors.”

Section chiefs were also instructed to increase the number of their youth coordination officers to six, and to appoint a sergeant to oversee the youth coordination officers.

These steps are being taken “due to recent violence near schools,” Maddrey said in a memo.

New march orders came a day after two teenagers and a 37-year-old security guard were shot at outside Williamsburg Charter High School on Varet Street in Brooklyn after a major brawl broke out late in the day. According to police, a girl was shot near the same school in December.

On Monday, two other Williamsburg teenagers were shot outside a separate high school in the same area.

Police sources said the teens were shot about a half block from the Grand Street Campus High School, where they both go to school. According to the Department of Education, the school was briefly locked down after the shootout.

In addition to stepping up police patrols around violent schools, Maddry ordered precinct superintendents to meet weekly with school principals to discuss “important matters.”

At the same time, Deputy Superintendent Marlon Larin, commander of the School Safety Division, ordered his officers to alert local stations when a minor confrontation between students inside the school “might retaliate.”

“This notice is important for a collaborative approach to addressing future issues related to the original incident,” Larin wrote. “These incidents include but are not limited to arguments, assaults and serious threats between students.

“If a school incident report has been drawn up, this report must be submitted to the appropriate command,” Larin ordered.

Police have seen an increase in violence between teenagers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials say.

Police said 157 victims under the age of 18 were either killed or injured in a shootout last year, up 20 from 2021, according to NYPD statistics provided by The News.

In just one week last month, police investigated four gun incidents in which teenagers were either the shooter or the victim, with one suspect arrested after opening fire on a city police officer.

Gregory Floyd, head of Teamsters Local 237, which represents the city’s school safety agents, said its members “always alerted” local police officers to problems at their schools that could lead to a violent incident.

Floyd blames the rise in violence during his layoffs on the cancellation of “safe corridor” programs run by NYPD and school safety officers before the pandemic.

As part of the program, police and school security personnel will monitor the streets that students leave the school on their way to the nearest train stations and bus stops.

The program was pulled after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis as the city pushed for the removal of police officers from city schools, fearing that the presence of police officers would criminalize students and harm disproportionately young people of color.

“We had a safe corridor program, down to science,” Floyd said Friday. “But during the protests against George Floyd, the de Blasio administration weakened him. They should never have let liberals who don’t have kids in our schools tell us how to protect kids.”

While the leader of the union agreed that Maddrey’s “All Out” program could help reduce violence, there are not enough cops and school guards today to recreate the safe corridor program.

“This is not the fault of the Adams administration. I don’t blame them. But now it’s their problem,” Floyd said.

In October, Mayor Adams announced a program where community organizations and anti-violence groups will create safe corridors for students to come and go from school.