NEW YORK – Three New York City high school students face menacing and unlawful imprisonment charges after police allege they locked a classmate in a freezer and rapped on the door with knives while threatening to kill him.

The suspects, all 16 years old, were arrested at Food and Finance High School May 6 after an unidentified student called his mother from inside of an industrial freezer and said his classmates trapped him inside, NBC New York reports.

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The student told police his tormentors were armed with knives from the culinary class, which they used to bang on the freezer door while one student threatened to kill him.

“They’re real knives,” he said. “I was thinking, ‘What if they opened the door and they really wanted to kill me?’”

“It was pitch black,” the student told the news site, “I just started freaking out.”

The boy’s mother called school officials, who let the teen out. He was inside the freezer for about 10 minutes while the teacher was away from the classroom, the New York Daily News reports.

The student told NBC New York he’s lost sleep and missed school in the weeks following the incident, and his doctor diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder. Students and teachers at the school, meanwhile, have poked fun at the traumatizing experience, he said.

“There are faculty that will say to me, ‘Stay frosty,’” the boy said. “They think it’s a joke. It’s not a joke.”

“I feel like everybody is against me at this point,” he added.

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School officials have refused to discuss the incident, DNAinfo reports, but the city’s Department of Education did issue a generic statement.

“The safety and security of students and staff is our top priority,” a spokeswoman told the news site. “The school followed protocol in responding to an incident that was reported and the students involved were disciplined appropriately.”

DNAinfo reports the students allegedly responsible for torturing their classmate were arrested and presented with desk appearance tickets.

The boy’s mother told NBC New York she’s outraged that students were left unsupervised with the chef’s knives, and claims the DOE denies weapons were involved because the knives are considered “tools” at Food and Finance High School.

“Children were in danger if children were running around with knives and no supervision,” she said. “There was imminent danger.”

NBC New York confirmed Tuesday that DOE officials do not consider the knives weapons.

Many folks who sounded off about the incident online were not surprised that the DOE is allegedly attempting to downplay the incident.

District officials should “sack up and own the incident and deal with the adults who are also messing with this kid as well, instead of trying to downplay the situation,” Tony Serrata posted to Facebook. “And the kids who did what they did? Throw the book at them. Let them know what happens when you bully someone.”

“Wait, you wonder why 16 year olds, who we as a society let drive cars, can use big boy knives without a chaperone?” Silas Ray questioned. “The correct response is to treat them like adults, put them in prison, and give the victim compensation.

“These people are two years or less from being legally adults, the solution is not further infantization, it’s making them take responsibility and having others see that’s what happens when you act like a violent jerk,” Ray wrote.

“’The safety and security of students and staff is our top priority,’ a Department of Education spokeswoman said. Rubbish, the school officials’ reputation and jobs are their top priority,” commenter “guylivinginManhattanFor20years” posted to the DNAinfo comments. “Student safety is far down the list.”

DNAinfo commenter @chris-adames alleges he witnessed the incident, and it didn’t occur exactly as the student victim suggests.

“I go to this school. I know the people who were involved in the incident and I can truly say this is not the whole truth. The victim stretched out and exaggerated this story to work for him. I’m not saying that what happened was right. But if you are going to make a claim with such large accusations, it should be the whole truth,” @chris-adames posted.

“There was no knifes involved and the victim was pushing another kid,” he wrote. “So the victim exaggerated and took these three kids on a roller coaster ride.”