Posted on 12/12/2019 5:58:33 AM PST by karpov
An 18-year-old Barnard freshman was fatally stabbed just after nightfall on Wednesday during a mugging in a park near the college’s Manhattan campus, the police and college officials said.
In a campuswide letter sent around 11 p.m., Sian Leah Beilock, Barnard’s president, identified the victim as Tessa Majors and said she had been killed in an armed robbery in Morningside Park.
“Tessa was just beginning her journey at Barnard and in life,” Ms. Beilock wrote. “We mourn this devastating murder of an extraordinary young woman and member of our community.”
Ms. Beilock said in the letter that she and Leslie Grinage, the dean of the college, had spoken with Ms. Majors’s parents, who were on their way to New York. She also urged “anyone in need” to take advantage of the college’s counseling services.
The official police account of the crime offered few details. About 5:30 p.m., officers with the New York Police Department responded to a report that a woman had been assaulted near West 116th Street and Morningside Drive, the police said.
When they arrived, the officers found an unconscious woman who had been stabbed multiple times. She was taken to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, the police said.
No one had been arrested and the investigation was continuing early Thursday, the police said.
...
Ms. Johnson, a Columbia student, said she had participated in an effort to help clean up the park and improve its reputation as dangerous. She said Ms. Majors’s murder would affect students’ perception of the park.
“This is going to re-demonize the image,” she said.
Major crime in New York City was down about 1 percent this year through Dec. 1 compared with the same period last year, but murder was up about 8 percent
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I was inclined to say "Serves him right"...but I can not. I don't hate anyone enough to celebrate the loss of a young life. The exception- perps killed in self-defense.
So, Dad, you still "down with the struggle" and supporting reparations?
Basically dark by an hour this time of year. And the park is a number of blocks long but only a good-sized block wide.
Yeah, I saw his twitter today. Kind of odd he deleted just now. Guess he got some comments about his politics. Regardless, RIP to the young lady.
Sad story. Good reminder to focus on what is important.
With the multiple stabbings this seems way more “hate crime” than strong armed robbery. RIP to her.
I hope the cops have enough snitches in gangs and elsewhere to catch the killer.
I graduated from Columbia in 1961. The park is below a bluff known as Morningside Heights where the University buildings are located. The downside of the location is that Morningside Park is on the same level as Harlem. As such, thugs and gang members from the area have always been a problem in the park.
Columbia, from the 50s on has tried to be a good neighbor to this Harlem location and built recreation facilities for the neighborhood as well as run all sorts of programs to the residents, using the civic good will of Columbia students to go to the park and conduct the programs.
Nevertheless, almost 70 years of attempts to initiate and participate in good citizenship has not protected students who also use the park. They are often regarded as interlopers and/or prey.
Concealed carry in New York? Never. But maybe pepper spray would not be too much to ask.
Have the race of these kids been disclosed yet?
They already have, a 13 year old kid and two others.
For many years after the controversy over the Columbia gym project in the 1970s, the sidewalk where she was killed was separated from Morningside Park by a 10 ft chain link fence topped by razor wire. I guess in DelBlasio’s NY, they took it down. But even back when Dinkins was mayor, Barnard never warned their incoming freshmen about the off-campus dangers. In those days, when Morningside Park was off limits, it was Riverside Park between 96th and 116th St that was the site of a lot of muggings, assaults and rapes each academic year....with naive young Barnard and Columbia girls, just out for a “nice walk in the park”, paying the price.
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