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Autistic Boy Slipped Through Cracks And Out Door to Death

By SARAH DORSEY
Posted 3/31/14

Avonte Oquendo, the 14-year-old autistic student who died after running away from his Long Island City school last October, may have managed to escape in part because a warning from his mother to watch him because he “likes to run” wasn’t shared widely enough by his Teacher, according to city investigators.

Special Schools Commissioner of Investigation Richard J. Condon March 27 also reported that a School Safety Agent saw Avonte darting from a stairwell across the first floor of P.S. 277, the Riverview School, just before he ran out. But though she yelled to him, she was distracted by the arrival of another student and believed she saw him heading back upstairs. He actually ducked out another door and onto the street.

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