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Brooklyn grad accuses principal of ignoring gunshot that terrorized students

A Brooklyn high school graduate charges the principal of his former school engaged in a “cover-up” of a shooting outside the building in late 2018, The Post has learned.

Dejaun Wright, 19, who graduated from Cobble Hill HS in June last year after serving as student body president, filed a complaint saying Principal Anna Maria Mule failed to inform parents of the gunfire at dismissal on Nov. 29, 2018 — and then barred him from offering emotional support to traumatized classmates.

Some students who had left school for the day at 2:40 p.m. were panic-stricken when when “one or two shots” erupted, according to a teacher.

“They never ran so fast in their life,” Wright said. “They never thought it would happen to them. Some kids were crying.”

Wright recalled a chaotic scene as students outside scattered, while about 200 kids still in the building got rushed to the cafeteria and locked down for about an hour.  School safety agents shouted, “Everybody inside! Nobody leave!” Wright said.

But Mule “actively took steps to prevent parents from knowing” about the incident, Wright said in his July 3 complaint to the Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools.

Dejaun said the school covered up a firing of a gun outside the school.
Wright said the school covered up a firing of a gun outside the school.Helayne Seidman

The NYPD said officers investigated a case of reckless endangerment when a suspect displayed and discharged a firearm. Officials could not say whether an arrest was made. No one was hit.

Cops watched the school for a week afterward, Wright said.

Mule told teachers not to mention the gunfire during parent conferences that same night, staffers told The Post. And she never sent a letter notifying parents about the incident, while another school in the neighborhood did inform them, they said.

Wright said he and other student leaders printed a letter for their shaken classmates, saying: “We are offering full support to any student who may have felt scared, shocked, or confused by last week’s incident.”

But after they began handing out the letter in classrooms, Wright was called to the office by an assistant principal who told him to stop or he would be booted as student body president, he said.

The school itself did not offer any counseling, he said.

Anna Maria Mule
Principal Anna Maria Mule

“The school administration ultimately did nothing to resolve the incident, choosing instead to sweep it under the rug,” Wright told the SCI.

He added in an interview, “No student should have to fear going to school, or experience a cover-up like that.”

Wright, now in college, said he did not go to authorities earlier because he feared retaliation by Mule.

Wright also said Mule’s handling of the episode shows flaws in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s recently announced plan to let principals, instead of the NYPD, run school safety.

“Transferring control to principals will lead to more cover-ups,” he said.

Mule is the subject of another SCI complaint by teachers who say she engaged in grade-fixing to boost the graduation rate of the school, which is located between a neighborhood with public housing and a wealthy, low-crime area of Cobble Hill at Baltic and Smith streets.

“The grade-fixing and the gunshot cover-up are part of the same game to sell a false image of the school to parents, students and the city,” a staffer said.

On June 26, Cobble Hill ousted six of its 34 teachers in what staffers called retaliation by Mule over leaked audiotape of a meeting — published in The Post — in which administrators said too many students were failing remote classes and should be passed “just for trying.”

Mule called Wright’s allegations “absolutely not true,” in an email to The Post but said she could not speak without the DOE’s approval. DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer said Mule immediately notified police and her superiors after the incident.

Four days later, Styer said, Superintendent Janice Ross “addressed community concerns” at a district 15 meeting.