New York City police say the city’s Department of Education (DOE) delayed their investigation into the killing of a teenager who had reportedly been bullied at school.
Javits Frimpong, 15, was shot in the abdomen at about 9:25 a.m. last week while trying to escape a group of masked attackers on his way to school in the Bronx, police said.
The teenager’s father, 60-year-old Thomas Frimpong, said Javits had moved to New York City from Ghana almost exactly a year earlier and had been experiencing bullying at school.
Officers responding to a 911 call found Javits bleeding in the street and rushed him to a hospital, where he later died from his injuries. No arrests have been made, and his killers remain at large.
The high-profile case attracted national attention after Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that President Trump had agreed to immediately grant Javits’s mother a visa to attend her son’s funeral.
At a news conference on Monday, however, New York City Police Department (NYPD) Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said the DOE was holding up part of the investigation.
“We’re working with the Department of Education. Unfortunately, they’re not willing to give us that information without a subpoena, so we’re going through proper channels to get that,” Kenny said.
The DOE’s website states that student information may be shared with authorities without written parental consent in a “health or safety emergency.”
Javits Frimpong, 15, was shot in the abdomen at about 9:25 a.m. last week while trying to flee masked attackers on his way to school in the Bronx. His killers remain at large
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said the city’s Department of Education would not provide police with information without a subpoena
Javits was found bleeding in the street by officers responding to a 911 call and was taken to the hospital, where he died. Officers are pictured at the crime scene
The DOE told the New York Post on Tuesday, one day after Kenny’s comments, that it was fully cooperating with police and had supplied all the materials requested.
The NYPD and DOE did not confirm whether police had obtained a subpoena before the information was provided, the outlet reported.
The Daily Mail has contacted the NYPD and DOE for comment.
New York State Assemblyman Kalman Yeger criticized Mayor Mamdani over the DOE’s alleged initial refusal to assist the investigation without a subpoena.
“In Mamdani’s New York, the public school system @NYCSchools refuses to help catch a child’s murderers,” Yeger wrote on X.
At Monday’s news conference, Kenny said detectives were examining whether Javits had been bullied and whether that played a role in his death, as his father has alleged.
“It’s one aspect that we’re looking at, as well as some others,” Kenny said.
Thomas told reporters that his son had come to the United States in search of a better education and hoped to pursue a career in medicine.
Surveillance footage showed the suspected killers chasing Javits before fleeing. The attackers were dressed in black and wore surgical masks
President Trump agreed to grant Javits’s Ghanaian mother a visa so she could attend her son’s funeral. She is pictured embracing relatives before traveling to the United States
Kenny told reporters that the investigation indicated Javits was “very, very into his schoolwork” and would sometimes leave his phone at home to concentrate in class.
Thomas said the school principal called him three days before Javits was killed to say that two students had been “disturbing” his son. The students were later suspended.
He recalled Javits describing the bullying, saying: “He said any time I’m going to lunch, that one, especially one of them, always bullies him.”
Thomas said his son had reported the students on several occasions.
Asked what he would say to the shooters, Thomas replied: “To give themselves to the police.”
“I don’t think they are going to go free for killing an innocent child,” he added.
Surveillance footage captured Javits’s final moments as he ran from the masked attackers before being shot.
An online fundraiser for the teenager’s family said he was fatally shot just one day after the first anniversary of his arrival in the United States.
Javits was “full of hope for a brighter future and a better education,” the fundraiser said, adding that his father “worked tirelessly to support him and provide everything he needed to succeed in school.”
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