Police have arrested a 27-year-old man in connection with the death of Katie Suarez, who was jogging on the Belt Parkway bike path in Bath Beach, Brooklyn. The man was charged with murder on Saturday the 7th and is reportedly a former police officer and a paraprofessional with the New York City Department of Education. The information comes from amNewYork, citing law enforcement sources.
According to amNewYork, NYPD detectives have arrested a suspect in the case of Katie Suarez, who was stabbed to death while jogging in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, on Oct. 30. Law enforcement sources said Sayed Mohassib, 27, was charged with murder on Saturday. The report is based on sources and is not an official police announcement.
According to the sources, Mohassib is a former police officer who worked for just one month, between October and November 2022, in the Field Training Unit before leaving. He has been working as a paraprofessional for the New York City Department of Education (DOE) at the public school PS 200 The Benson School, and reportedly continued working with children after the incident. He is said to have told police, "I woke up after the attack covered in blood, but I don't remember what happened."
Suarez was attacked on Oct. 30 while running on the Belt Parkway bike path after work. According to police, she left her workplace, TD Bank, with a coworker, met her mother at a Wendy's, and changed into workout clothes. At 7:56 p.m., she told her father by cell phone that she was about 0.5 miles (about 0.8 kilometers) away. When she did not show up afterward, her parents went looking for her. Police believe the attack took place within 20 minutes of that call, on the bike path along the Narrows in the 62nd Precinct.
Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said a large amount of blood was left at the scene and that Suarez ran about 150 feet (about 46 meters) east after being attacked before collapsing under a tree. Her father found her unconscious and asked a passerby to call 911. Suarez was taken to NYU Langone Brooklyn Hospital, where she remained in critical condition and died several days later. There are no security cameras on that stretch of the bike path, so police had asked drivers who passed through the area that evening to submit dashcam footage.