New York City’s Department of Education, which spends roughly $45 billion a year, hired a substitute paraprofessional with an extensive documented history of psychiatric crises — and he is now accused of killing a jogger in Brooklyn.
Sayed Mohassib is accused of murdering jogger Katie Suarez near the Belt Parkway in Bath Beach on Oct. 30. According to an account published by the New York Post, Mohassib says he found himself sitting on a nearby bench covered in blood with no memory of what happened.
At the time, Mohassib was working as a substitute paraprofessional at PS 200, a position that put him in direct contact with young children and typically requires nomination by a school principal.
Mohassib’s record before that hire included a brief stint with the NYPD, a discharge from the Marines on psychiatric grounds, and rejection when he sought reinstatement as a police officer. On the same day he was turned down for reinstatement, he was taken to Bellevue Hospital because of erratic behavior, the Post reported. In 2024, police brought him to Coney Island Hospital after he threatened to “chop” his mother and sister into pieces.
Despite that documented history, the DOE hired him into a role that put him in direct, hands-on contact with children.
A $200,000 principal with no school
The case has surfaced alongside other examples of dysfunction inside the system. Caleb Haraguchi-Combs is reportedly being paid close to $200,000 a year as principal of an AI/fintech high school that does not exist, after the school was scrapped. Manhattan High School Superintendent Gary Beidleman has not moved to cut his pay back to a prior level or assign him to run an actual school, according to the Post.
Separately, schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels is facing scrutiny over accounting and contracting practices, including his approval of lucrative no-bid contracts and the department’s refusal to release information on more than $10 billion in third-party expenditures, the Post reported.
These controversies come as most DOE schools continue to struggle to teach students basic reading, writing and math, and as enrollment keeps declining amid an exodus of families who can afford to leave the system.
Add comment