Only a week after Avonte Oquendo's remains were found in the East River, a 4-year-old boy in Bed-Stuy left his school and walked home unattended in the same manner that Oquendo was able to leave his school unnoticed in October.
According to DNAInfo, 4-year-old Seymir Jasper left P.S. 59 at around 10 a.m. on Thursday, after asking to use the bathroom. Jasper then became disoriented and exited the school, walking a block to his family's apartment in the Tompkins Houses. He was not wearing a coat, despite the freezing weather.
"He looked really nervous, and I asked him if he was OK, and he said he was scared, and I asked him what happened, and he told me he was in the bathroom, it was dark and noone was there," Seymir's mother told NY1 in an interview. Seymir's parents are pulling him out of the school following the incident.
In October, Oqueno, who was 14 and suffered from a severe form of autism, disappeared from his Long Island City school, after being left unattended. His death has led to an investigation into security at his school, as well as protocol citywide. P.S. 59 held an all-staff meeting to go over Seymir's escape from the school and how it happened.
Yesterday, Senator Charles Schumer introduced a law that would provide optional tracking devices to the families of autistic individuals. A tracking device might have helped prevent Avonte's death, but as Seymir demonstrated, there are clearly still blind spots in the school system's security procedures. The Department of Education, however, has failed to be forthright about the exact details of these lapses.
