A 33-year-old high school teacher in the Bronx, New York, who was organizing his classroom ahead of the start of the next school year, was reportedly hit by a stray bullet shortly before noon Wednesday.
“This blatant display of violence is both shocking and reprehensible. The NYPD immediately responded to the scene where an educator suffered non-life-threatening injuries,” the New York City Department of Education said in a statement, according to ABC News on Wednesday.
Shortly before dinner, the thirty-year-old was busy preparing his classroom on the sixth floor for the start of the school year the next day, when a stray bullet apparently passed through one of the windows, hitting him directly in the right hand, according to the American media.
No students were in the classroom or even in the school building at the time of the incident.
Fortunately, the teacher suffered only a graze wound, so he had already been released from the hospital that evening, NYPD Bronx Deputy Patrol Chief Keiyon Ramsey reportedly said.
According to him, the stray bullet was fired from a high place, a long distance from the school.
“The school was not the target,” he assured in a press briefing on Wednesday, according to ABC News.
An investigation is underway to try to determine where the bullet was fired, Deputy Chief Louis Deceglie of the NYPD’s Bronx detective bureau said.
“We are currently searching all the roofs in the vicinity, looking for ballistic and video evidence,” he added, according to the American media.
Out of an “abundance of caution,” additional school security officers and middle school police officers were sent to the scene for the first day of school Thursday, Ramsey said.
