Exclusive video shows Voice Charter School administrator Charlene Martinez stop knife-wielding woman
NEW YORK -- There were heroic moments in Queens when a school administrator tackled a knife-wielding mother allegedly trying to stab another woman during school pickup.
There was chaos during afternoon pickup Monday at Voice Charter School in Long Island City.
Exclusive video shows the woman police identify as 29-year-old Cheniel Rose pointing a knife in the air toward another mother as students run screaming.
"She just tried to stab someone," a person on the video said.
Charlene Martinez, the school's director of upper elementary, tackled Rose and restrained her until police arrived.
"The only thing that was in my brain was just making sure that everybody was safe," Martinez said.
"A lot of people are calling you a hero. You don't like that term?" CBS2's Jessica Moore asked.
"No. When you work in a school, and when you are part of a community, what you do is you take action to make sure that your community is taken care of that you do what you need to do to engage and make sure everybody is safe," Martinez said.
Parents like Anna Succes say Martinez came dangerously close to being stabbed herself.
"She risked her life," Succes said. "If you saw the size of this knife, you would freak out."
Succes and her daughters were feet away from the woman with the knife when Martinez intervened.
"When I think about it, I want to cry, really, because she protected everybody that was there -- hundreds of kids and parents," Succes said. "It was superhuman."
And like any true hero would, Martinez said she was just doing her job, and would do it again without hesitation.
Police arrested Rose on menacing charges.
Voice Charter School will be doing indoor pickup for the next few days as a precaution.
