16-Year-Old Stabbed, Likely as Result of Gang Dispute

A 16-year-old high school student was stabbed at least four times during a dispute with a group of boys on a Union Square subway stairwell yesterday morning, police officials said.

The student, identified by former classmates as Mark Tyrell, 16, was in stable condition. A 13-year-old boy, whom police did not identify last night, was in custody but had not been officially charged. Mr. Tyrell is a known gang member, police sources said.

Students at the nearby Washington Irving High School and police said the fight concerned a previous dispute Mr. Tyrell's friends had with members of the group who attacked him.

"Crips, Bloods, and then there's" Dominicans Don't Play, a freshman at Washington Irving, Dimitri Alvarado, said of the gangs at the school. "They all beefin', that's what I heard."

Mr. Tyrell was accosted by the group on a subway platform and fled up a flight of stairs that led to 14th Street. Enclosed by police tape, a backpack and pool of blood was visible in front of 104 E. 14th St. yesterday.

Mr. Tyrell is a junior at Chelsea Career and Technical Education High School, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, Dina Paul Parks, said. The 13-year-old in custody is an eighth-grader at Abraham Lincoln Junior High School in the Ridgewood section of Brooklyn, she said.

A Washington Irving junior, Quion Dipuglia, said Mr. Tyrell had gotten into a fight with members of Dominicans Don't Play, leading him to get transferred to the Chelsea school.

Last December, Taishawn Bellevue, 17, was fatally stabbed in a fight at the northern end of Union Square in a fight between two groups of high school students. Bellevue was a student at Science Skills High School in Brooklyn.

The Department of Education began providing crisis counseling to students at Chelsea Career and Technical Education High School in light of the attack.

Robert Mezias, who teaches biology at Washington Irving, said the school was safe but some students still got into trouble on the streets.

"We've got a zero-tolerance policy here," he said. "They get suspended very quickly. I've never felt unsafe."