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The unhinged ex-NYPD cop accused of fatally stabbing a Brooklyn jogger told police he was at the bike path with a knife because “people were going to come and kill his family,” according to a criminal complaint.
Former Police Officer Sayed Mohassib — a 27-year-old city public-school teacher’s aide — made the maniacal statement after he was nabbed in the Oct. 30 slaying of 28-year-old Katie Suarez, who was out for a jog along the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn when she was stabbed twice in the neck and left to die.
Mohassib was tracked down partly thanks to surveillance video that captured him walking toward the crime scene and later running from it in a time sequence that fit the horrific apparently random crime, according to the Brooklyn criminal complaint.
Cops were eventually able to ID him using facial-recognition technology teamed with records already in several government systems, including the fingerprints and photos of him on file from his brief roughly six-week NYPD stint and longer work with the city Department of Education, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
After Mohassib was picked up by authorities, he allegedly told detectives he believed he had to go to the park that day or “people’’ would hurt his family, court documents said.
He claimed he then left the park to go to the nearby Verrazzano Bridge, returned, “sat down on bench, and became covered in blood, including on his jacket, pants and clothes,’’ the papers said.
Under questioning, the suspect told cops he “did not stab anyone,’’ the documents said.
Mohassib then ran back to his Bensonhurst home, “emerging 15 minutes later wearing only underwear and subsequently throwing items into a garbage chute,” the complaint said.
He told officers he “got rid of the bloody clothing, and got rid of the knife,’’ the papers said — with sources adding that detectives are now scouring a sanitation barge for the murder weapon.
Mohassib also acknowledged he “had blood on his hands and got blood in his apartment, which he attempted to clean,’’ according to court documents.
“[He] further identified himself on video surveillance footage.’’
Inside the suspect’s room, the walls were splattered with blood, which Mohassib said he tried to clean but was unable, the complaint said.
The former cop had spent just six weeks with New York’s Finest before leaving to join the US Marines Corps – only to be turned away from the military unit over concerns over his mental state, sources said.
He attempted to return to the NYPD but was turned down after appearing “disheveled” and over other disturbing signs, sources told The Post.
Mohassib was working as a paraprofessional with the city schools system when he allegedly killed Suarez.
The city Board of Education did not respond to a Post request for comment Sunday.
A woman who spoke through the door at Mohassib’s home declined to comment Sunday, telling The Post, “I am in very deep pain right now. I don’t want to talk.”
He was arraigned Saturday and ordered held without bail.
Additional reporting by Fenix Suriel
