Brooklyn teacher’s aide Sayed Mohassib stabbed runner to death as she trained for NYC Marathon, threatened to ‘chop up’ family in 2024

Sayed Mohassib, 27, was arrested and charged on Saturday with the brutal murder of 28-year-old runner Katie Suarez. The killing was carried out on October 30 at the waterfront promenade in the Gravesend neighborhood of Brooklyn, three blocks away from where Mohassib had been working as a teacher’s aide at PS 200 in Brooklyn, per the New York Post.

Suarez was stabbed twice in the neck while out for a run. Her father, with whom she had been talking over the phone moments before her killing, found Suarez bloodied and dying and asked a nearby cyclist to call 911.

Mohassib reportedly told the police that he had carried a knife to the park because “people were going to come and kill his family.”

Surveillance video had captured Mohassib returning to his Bensonhurst apartment drenched in blood. He told police that he had attempted to clean blood splatters off of his bedroom walls. He claimed to police that he had blacked out while walking along the path, and when he regained consciousness, he noticed blood on his clothing.

Sources told NBC News 4 that Mohassib had continued to go to work as a paraprofessional at PS 200 in the week after Suarez’s murder.

Mohassib joined the NYPD in October of 2022, leaving just six weeks later to join the Marines. He was discharged from the Marines the same year for being psychologically unfit.

He tried to get his job back with the NYPD but was denied after supervisors noticed he appeared disheveled and exhibited concerning behavior. The city’s Department of Education told the New York Post on Monday that Mohassib had been fired.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani has ordered a review into how Mohassib was able to work in a school setting. He said, “I have directed my team to conduct a full review of this matter, underlying the importance of the fact that nothing is more paramount than the safety of our students, and we know that when it comes to this specific case, New York City public schools has suspended the individual and is moving to terminate his employment pending the outcome of this case.”

Sources told local news that police had been called to the Bensonhurst apartment where Mohassib lives with his mother and sister in 2024 after the women told police that Mohassib had threatened to “chop them up.”