A public school employee who was briefly a New York police officer has been charged with second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of a 28-year-old female jogger in Brooklyn last week, an apparently random attack.
Sayed Mohassib, 27, was arrested Saturday in the death of Katie Suarez, who was attacked Oct. 30 along the Belt Parkway bike path in the Bath Beach section of Brooklyn, where she had gone for a run. Mohassib told investigators he had been walking along the path with a knife, police said.
Security video shows Mohassib in the area of the jogging path and later running away from the area of the crime scene, according to court documents.
Mohassib was ordered held without bail Saturday night at his arraignment in Brooklyn. The criminal complaint charges him with second-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
He told investigators he blacked out and was covered in blood when he regained awareness while he was seated on a bench, according to law enforcement sources and court documents.
Investigators said Mohassib admitted going with a knife to the bike path, where he walked to and from the Verrazzano Bridge, but insisted he didn’t stab anyone. He said he believed he had to go to the path or else “people were going to come and kill his family,” his criminal complaint says.
Suarez was stabbed at least two times in the neck and was rushed to the hospital, where she died from her injuries days later.
Detectives used security video from the area to help identify Mohassib as a suspect, authorities said. Security cameras also captured him dumping bags of garbage in his underwear about 15 minutes after he returned home after the stabbing, according to a police account in the complaint. A search was underway Sunday at a sanitation facility for any evidence that may have been discarded.
According to the complaint, Mohassib admitted that he threw away his bloody clothes and the knife.
He also said he had blood on his hands and clothes when he returned to his apartment and transferred some of it there. Police identified a bloodstain in the apartment, which Mohassib said he tried to clean.
Mohassib spent about a month as a New York police rookie in the Bronx beginning in October 2022 before he asked to be reassigned to the military on extended leave. He was removed from military service because of mental health issues, according to a law enforcement source familiar with his background.
He officially resigned from the police department on Dec. 16, 2022, while he was still on his military assignment. His police-issued firearm had already been removed, and it was never returned to him.
In January 2023, the police department denied Mohassib’s request to be reinstated. The source said he was taken to the psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital after he exhibited strange behavior when he tried to get his job back in person.
According to a law enforcement source, police responded to Mohassib’s home in Brooklyn on Sept. 27, 2024, but he was not there. His mother and sister told police that Mohassib had threatened to chop them up. He was found nearby and taken to Coney Island Hospital, according to the source.
Mohassib most recently worked for the New York City Education Department as a paraprofessional at P.S. 200, an elementary school in Brooklyn also known as the Benson School. He continued to report to work among children after the stabbing, law enforcement officials said.
It was not immediately clear whether his psychiatric history was reviewed before he was hired.
“The safety of our students is our very top priority. We have suspended this individual and will move to terminate employment pending the outcome of the conviction,” an Education Department spokesperson said in a statement. “We are supporting the NYPD in their investigation however is needed.”
Police believe the attack was random.
Suarez was supposed to meet her parents after her run. When she did not arrive, her father went looking for her and found her. She fought for her life in the hospital for several days before she died of her injuries, said her mother, Yasira Suarez.