Peers: Stabbing suspect was picked on, different from others

NEW YORK (AP) — The student accused of stabbing a classmate to death and seriously injuring another during history class was different from other guys and had been picked on since the school year started, fellow students and police said.

But the boys 18-year-old Abel Cedeno is accused of attacking at the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife hadn’t bothered him before, not until Wednesday morning’s third-period history class, when they started tossing broken bits of pencils and paper at his head, authorities said.

Cedeno snapped, they said. He excused himself to go to the bathroom, and when he came back, he pulled out a switchblade and started fighting and slashing at them, police said. Fifteen-year-old Mathew McCree was killed and a 16-year-old was seriously wounded.

“Everybody just stood back. A few of them were holding Matthew. A few of them were holding towels on the wound,” witness Jomarlyn Colon, 16, told the Daily News. “All the kids were crying and screaming.”

While school safety agents raced to the room and the teachers and students tried to stop the bleeding, a counselor confronted Cedeno in the hallway and he handed over the blade, police said.

Cedeno was charged Thursday with murder and weapon possession. The Legal Aid Society, which was representing him, said its lawyers were talking with Cedeno and his family, “reviewing the facts and circumstances of this case including the long history of bullying and intimidation Abel has endured.”

Cedeno told police that he bought the switchblade online for protection and had been harassed at least since the school year began. But he didn’t specify why, Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said Thursday.

Yanique Heatley, 18, a student at the school, told reporters that Cedeno was “different from the other guys.”

“He likes Nicki Minaj, stuff from H&M. He likes Kylie Jenner,” she said.

“He usually gets bullied a lot,” said Asia Jones, 18. She said fellow students bothered Cedeno in the hall and “talk crap to him.”

“He’s nice,” she said. “He’s sensitive. He has a good heart.”