A Guardian of Local Children Falls

A Guardian of Local Children Falls

Esteemed Lower Manhattan School Safety Officer Victim of Murder-Suicide

Naire McCormick, who served for years as the School Safety Agent at Millennium High School, in the Financial District

A protector and defender of Lower Manhattan school children is gone. Naire McCormick, who has served as the uniformed School Safety Agent at Millennium High School in the Financial District for the past four years, died on Sunday evening, the victim of an apparent murder-suicide in Brooklyn.

Police investigators believe that her boyfriend, Jancy Dempster, showed up at Ms. McCormick’s apartment in the Fort Greene section on Brooklyn on Sunday evening, to celebrate his birthday. As the night progressed, however, police believe he became intoxicated and turned belligerent. Sometime shortly after 11:00 pm, detectives allege, he fired a gun into Ms. McCormick’s head, killing her, and then turned the weapon on himself.

	Ms. McCormick and her 12-year-old son, Scott, who is now an orphan

Her 12-year-old son, Scott, was sleeping in an adjacent room when this transpired, police say. Hearing gunshots and confronted by carnage, he fled the apartment, and was a few minutes later met outside the building by police officers, responding to multiple 911 calls about gunfire.

Scott has now been placed with an aunt and uncle, his only remaining close relatives. Friends and admirers of Ms. McCormick (including many Millennium High School parents, who feel indebted to the officer who protected their children) have set up a GoFundMe page to help provide for the orphaned child. (For more information, or to make a donation, please browse: www.gofundme.com/f/scottiem)

The scene on Sunday evening outside the Brooklyn apartment building where Ms. McCormick and Scott resided

Ms. McCormick, aged 44, had served with the School Safety service (a division of the New York Police Department) for 15 years. In a tearful ceremony at Millennium on Tuesday morning, she was remembered for her optimism and the protective instinct she brought to the school, where she had guarded the entrance each day since 2015. (Twice in recent years, she was called upon to lock down the facility on a moment’s notice: In April, 2017, when a dispute among ticket vendors led to a shooting a few blocks from the school’s front door, and again in October of that year, when the truck attack on the West Side Highway resulted in eight deaths.) But she was also remembered for the personal connection she fostered with many students at the school, attending each year’s prom, and sometimes dispensing expert fashion advice to Millennium’s young women. (In her spare time, Ms. McCormick supplemented her income by working as a model.)

“The whole school is really sad and devastated,” reflected Millennium senior Jamie Morrison. “Miss McCormick always said ‘good morning’ to every student when we entered the school in the morning. She had so much positive energy. It was so nice to start the school day that way. All the students loved her. It’s going to be real hard passing the security desk every morning without seeing and hearing her. I can’t believe something so tragic can happen to someone so special.”

Millennium parent Scott Morrison, added, “she always remembered my name, even though only entered the building only four time a year. This is a horrific and very sad situation.”