Investigators found no evidence that a teen who fatally stabbed a classmate had been bullied by the victim at their Bronx middle school — but a city social worker told them she tried to get the boy schooled at home and was turned down.
The report from top schools investigator Richard Condon said that neither Noel Estevez, 14, nor his family ever accused victim Timothy Crump, also 14, of bullying by name.
“The SCI investigation did not establish that any bullying or harassment of Noel Estevez by Timothy Crump took place at IS 117. That is not to say that no bullying took place elsewhere,” Condon wrote in a report to Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina.
But the report also said that a month before the June 18 stabbing city social worker Irma Brown – who heard vague claims of bullying while investigating the youth’s chronic truancy – was trying to get Noel home instruction.
School guidance counselor Jean Pierre “informed Brown that Noel did not qualify for home instruction. Noel was physically able to attend school; he simply did not do so,” the report said.
Brown, from the Administration for Children’s Services, told investigators that Noel’s mother was also trying to get a police report for school officials so she could get a safety transfer.
“But the NYPD would not give a report because no one had hurt Noel,” the report said, citing Brown’s version of events.
At the time of the stabbing, Brown was also trying to arrange a housing transfer for Noel and his mother – who had been recently released from jail, the report said.
A school transfer could have meant a school transfer as well.
Brown said Noel told her he was being harassed by “several children who followed him to and from school” but that neither he nor his mother ever mentioned Timothy.
The report also said that one school staffer, Family Assistant Parbatty Singh, said the boy’s aunt had reported bullying in a phone call on April 30 – without naming names – when she spoke to the family about his absence from school.
Singh then posted the information in the “Automate the Schools” student information system, where it apparently went unnoticed by Principal Delise Jones and others – even though they had access to the system.
The aunt, Singh said, called her at the school on April 30.
“Spoke to Aunt Maria [who] said child told mother he is being harassed in the school by some students and mother went to [precinct] and made a report,” Singh wrote.
She reported the call to a school guidance counselor, Jean Pierre, but did not tell Jones.
Singh also said she met withNoel’s father on July 16 – two days before the stabbing – but said he never mentioned bullying and promised Noel would attend school every day from then on.
The boy’s enraged mother, Maria Estevez, called the report a whitewash.
“They’re just trying to cover their ass. He would come home with black and blue marks. He wasn’t going to school for three months because he was scared. He would cry, ‘Mommy I don’t want to,’” she said.
“I went to the school but they didn’t do anything. I went asking for help from so many people that I got tired of asking.”
Jones insisted to investigators “that neither [Estevez’s] parents nor anyone else ever asked for a safety transfer for Noel. According to Principal Jones, no one – including Noel, his family, IS 117 staff members – ever told her about Noel being the alleged victim of harassment or bullying,” Condon wrote in his report.
Two assistant principals at the school also said they had never been told by Noel or anyone else that he had been bullied or harassed.
Investigators also spoke to NYPD Detective Bernard Solomon, who was assigned to investigate the stabbing and spoke to Noel after he was arrested.
“According to Detective Solomon, Noel told him that he never went to anyone to complain about harassment or bullying. Detective Solomon confirmed that Noel and Timothy had been friends until the dispute over stolen property – a cell phone – adding, ‘there was no bullying at all.’”