The attacker who stabbed a middle schooler at a Brooklyn playground and left him in critical condition was just 12-years-old, police said, as they charged the youngster Friday with attempted murder as a juvenile.
The pre-teen suspect allegedly knifed fellow 12-year-old Khayell Dupree in the chest inside Betsy Head Park in Brownsville as part of some kind of ongoing beef, the victim’s heartbroken mom told The Post.
“From what I know, allegedly, he had an issue with one of the kids that were involved [in] the neighborhood,” Khayell’s mom, Karerja Rerd, 36, told The Post outside the family’s building just blocks from the scene. “I don’t know how it started. I don’t know how we got to that point.”
Khayell – who was listed in critical but stable condition – was ultimately moved to a Queens hospital that specializes in pediatric cardiovascular care, his mom said.
“So [the] knife punctured his left lung and his heart, they had to cut from his collarbone so above his stomach, to close his heart, and then he started with all the fluid in his lungs,” Rerd said. “So my baby is hooked up to tools all throughout his body.”
“When I still talk to him, I still touch him, I still kiss him… just gently and on his hand.”
His alleged attacker was arrested at the scene, and a knife was recovered, police said. It was unclear if the suspect also went to the nearby Mott Hall Bridges Academy with the victim.
He now faces the serious felony rap and will be charged as a juvenile with his proceeding in Family Court, cops and prosecutors said.
Rerd described Khayell as a “quirky and goofy and funny” kid who is “happy all the time,” likes playing Roblox, and has “a great relationship” with his 5-year-old autistic sister. He has three older brothers, 15, 16 and 18, she said.
“My baby’s not one of them kids that you gotta worry about,” Rerd said of her son. “He’s not one of them. I love him. That’s my baby.”
“But those other kids, other people’s babies…that’s what they did, and now I almost lost my son, but they messed up their lives too,” she added. “Somebody else’s mother got to [deal] with their child being incarcerated.”
The circumstances leading to the violence were still under investigation Friday.
“Whatever issue they had, whatever problems they had, it was never that serious,” Rerd said. “It was never that bad….You’re supposed to be playing Roblox. You’re supposed to go to VR and Nintendo and do fun stuff, and Christmas is coming up.”
“This is not Roblox,” she said of the youth violence. “You don’t get to do over. You don’t get an extra life. This is not Minecraft. You don’t have 10,000 hearts and you can take it. No, it don’t work like that. It don’t work like that. This is real life. When things happen, they happen, and it’s real, and it has real effect on you and the people around.”
In a separate burst of violence about two hours earlier, two boys, 13 and 15, were stabbed during a brawl outside the Seneca Avenue M train station in Ridgewood, Queens, authorities said.
The younger teen was knifed in the chest and the older victim stabbed in the back during the 4:50 p.m. scuffle on Seneca Avenue near Palmetto Street, police said.
Both were taken to local hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, cops said.
A group of teens fled the scene after the violent dust-up and had not been caught by Friday, police said.
