Chicago family outraged after student threatens their son with knife

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - The family of a Kennedy High School student is expressing outrage over the way the school has handled an incident where a girl threatened to stab and kill a boy after grabbing a knife from the school cafeteria.

“I still don't know what I did, and I received a two day suspension that to this day I still don't know what I did,” said Bassem Hayik, who was the victim of the near attack.

But Hayik is not just frustrated over the suspension, he’s also upset because he says he's been falsely portrayed as the one who instigated a situation where he was the victim.

The incident happened in the Kennedy High School cafeteria during sixth period lunch on Friday, February 26th. Hayik says it started when a freshman girl sent a boy over to make threats at him. Hayik responded that he'd let the girl get the first three punches in, and then things escalated.

“She then stands up and says 'oh this will be the first and the last funeral your fat ass is going to be at,'” Hayik said.

Witnesses say the girl then walked into the cafeteria, where she remained for about five minutes.

“Then she walks out with the knife and she approaches the victim and she tells him that she's going to stab him and she's flinging the knife everywhere,” said junior Aliyah Garcia, who was in the lunchroom at the time.

Hayik said he was expecting the girl to lunge at him with the chef’s knife, which appeared from a social media picture to be at least six inches long.

The security guard grabbed the girl’s arm and got the knife away from her.

“My son is traumatized since then, he's had so many nightmares, a lot of times he can't sleep at night,” said Zehour Hayik, Bassem’s mother.

The Hayik family is frustrated because the incident report claims Bassem started the situation by making racist comments, which is something he flat out denies.
 
“We can't feel safe with our kids when he's the principal in this school because he's not assuring the safety for our kids,” said Mrs. Hayik.

Others share that concern as well.

“I don't feel safe at all in the school because the principal should have expelled her, I don't care if she was a freshman or I don't care what the victim was telling the girl,” Aliyah Garcia said.

The principal said safety is his number one concern and that all the proper protocol was followed by the school. But he would not say how the girl was able to get a knife from the cafeteria where it was supposed to be kept under lock and key. He would also not say if any staff had been disciplined as a result.

The girl who grabbed the knife reportedly was suspended for two days herself.