So a new generation of college students thought the park was mostly safe because, mostly, it was. Lots of young women were having nightmares: I was walking down Broadway in broad daylight and feeling threatened by everything and scared.. No, no, no, Acevedo said. ", Her family also thanked the "men and women of the NYPD, who continue to work diligently on this case.". While Barnard has "its own trustees, faculty, and dean" and is in charge of its own endowment and facilities, it shares some common responsibilities with Columbia, including security. NBC New Yorks Ray Villeda reports. One first-year described looking around her dorm room where Tess had very recently been and resting her gaze on all the objects her living body had so recently physically touched a bed, a bookshelf and nearly having a panic attack. pic.twitter.com/3Trb5wQ1Dr, Majors' death has rocked the entire campus community. All rights reserved, Hate Against Jewish People, Police Fueled Jersey City Attack: NJ AG, WATCH: Man Rescues Dog After Leash Gets Caught in Elevator, Construction May Make Getting to JFK Airport a Nightmare for 3 Years: What to Know, Benadryl Challenge' That Killed Ohio Teen Lands NJ Boy in Hospital; See Mom's Warning, Flooding Nightmare' Ends Weekend Downpour, Fills NYC Basements With Sewage Water, Entenmann's Launches Ice Cream Sandwiches Based on Its Baked Goods, A college student was brutally stabbed in a park near Columbia University in what police say was a robbery, The victim was identified as 18-year-old Tessa Majors, NYPD crime statistics show that Morningside Park had the most reports of robberies in all of New York City parks so far in 2019. Cop cars drove up on the sidewalks, and the machine-gun chop of helicopters filled the air. That's where a growing tribute with candles and stuffed animals grew Friday evening, as the stunned Barnard College community struggled to come to terms with the tragedy. This is not like school, where you get suspended for a few days. In the spring of 2019, when Tess was still in high school, Barnard and Columbia undertook a massive rethinking of their approach to the issues of race and student safety after a Columbia senior named Alexander McNab refused to show his ID at the high Barnard gates. Tessa Majors, an 18-year-old student, was found stabbed at Morningside Park near W.. Do you see what you fucking got yourself into, cause youre hanging out with the wrong fucking people instead of bringing your ass home? And: I told you about being a follower! Tess was tiny and feminine and among her peers had started to use they/them pronouns, although she didnt insist on it. Riverdale Park. She ended her paper with a quote from Anna Quindlen, who famously said she majored in unafraid at Barnard. The teenager, now 14 . A mandatory safety briefing was part of their orientation, they say, but it was worthless. She was very special and very loved.". All the cops were the citys answer to an unasked question: What are you going to do to protect us from the natives?, as he put it to me. These things happen. Around the time of Tessas murder, two other Columbia students died, and these were met with the usual administration condolences and list of campus resources: a hotline, a chaplain, the open hours of psych services. Password must be at least 8 characters and contain: As part of your account, youll receive occasional updates and offers from New York, which you can opt out of anytime. She found a security guard who called 911, but she was pronounced dead at the hospital. And on Tuesday, a 16-year-old pleaded guilty to her murder in Manhattan Criminal Court and described at length the encounter that led to her violent death on a chilly December evening outside. I was told not to walk through that park," Melony said. People would go in there smoke crack, have sex, live in the park," recalled Sekou. the stabbing of Barnard student Tessa Majors, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Thats the thing. Emotions were running high, though some students dared to complain in low voices about the study time they were sacrificing to attend the event while friends shushed them angrily. The murder occurred on a Wednesday night during Finals Week. For years, he says, he had been complaining bitterly about necessary upgrades and fuming about the parks status as a poor stepchild to Central and Riverside parks. When Tess and all the other first-year students arrived on campus, no one mentioned the spike of crime in the park. Tess refused to hand over her phone. It was creepy and morbid to be on the steps after dark, not soothing or uplifting. After-hours psychological emergency line: (855) 622-1903. But Columbia's own public safety report from 2018 defines its Clery geography to include "all public property that is immediately adjacent to and accessible from the campus." Privacy Policy and The stabbings, on opposite ends of Morningside Park, were certain to rattle the Columbia University community that populates Morningside Heights. Aug. 12, 2011. Donald Trump Missed Melanias Birthday, Was Too Busy Ranting Online. All rights reserved. Police say the 30-year-old Columbia University student who died was stabbed near Morningside Park just before 11 p.m. near 123rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue.. Just a short time later, officers . Paths on the upper level were narrow and overgrown, their sight lines obscure. Mullins had intentionally or unintentionally directed blame on Tess, a young woman, for her own murder. In a pained email, someone in Tesss inner circle wrote, Tess was a big-tent person., In addition to the extra NYPD officers, Columbia University security promised more cars, more foot-patrol officers, more shuttle buses, and more escort services. "A lot of people were confused, when they learned that Majors had been killed, Kopyto said. While any murder is shocking, one professor reflected, I was a little bit surprised at how shocking people found this one. He did not touch her or take her belongings.. Theres a dog run and a Greenmarket on Saturdays and a new playground near the foot of the steps where Tess was stabbed. She was a first-year college student who moved to the Big Apple from Virginia, according to the school. According to one senior law enforcement official, the teen made some statements to authorities, but the source did not characterize those as a confession. Coney Island closely follows with 49 and No. He could have had a knife in his pocket. This article was featured in One Great Story, New Yorks reading recommendation newsletter. Barnard has been a quasi-independent college within Columbia University since 1900, according to its website. Everyone in the world saw the video, it seems, and it became the occasion for anguished, campuswide soul-searching. On the day after the murder, the baby-faced boy was walking near the corner of 119th Street and Morningside Avenue, not far from the park, with a group of six or seven friends, boys and girls, including one who zoomed ahead on a skateboard. Furthermore, my client is not alleged to have stabbed the victim, she said. Chief investigative reporter Jonathan Dienst on crime, corruption and terrorism. Copyright 2023 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. Please avoid the area.. This was a murder. MORNINGSIDE PARK . Im being honest. Elderly and young people who would take the risk of walking through the park.. It is also unclear how the "crime informationals" list is shared with students. Around the park, as everywhere in the city, gentrification has remained a source of tension. I have spoken directly, and repeatedly, to the Police Commissioner who has kept me informed about the investigation. We had all been out the night before. But soon rumors began to travel. Everything Is Breaking the Knicks Way Now. At semi-regular meetings up at Columbia, stakeholders Taylor, reps from Parks and the university, local politicians would listen to Harpers crime report. Did it learn from that mistake? Now, in an era of heightened vigilance and activism, a whole cultures protective instincts kicked in, insisting that young black suspects sought by police could be seen as casualties as well. They considered and discarded several targets before settling, finally, on Tess, a small 18-year-old with blue-green hair. The boy is escorted in by an officer with a gun, his hands cuffed behind his back. At 6:43, Tess had entered the park from the eastern Harlem side; at around the same time, the boys entered too, by a different entrance. This past September, Brad Taylor wrote his umpteenth email to Mark Levine, the city councilmember for the area, begging for three full-time Parks patrols to be dedicated to Morningside. It wasnt 11 p.m. Were like, Schools out at 2:30, good luck, well see you at 8 a.m., maybe., After the arrests, she says, there wasnt a groundswell. She knows Tess would have too. A law enforcement source tells NBC New York that investigators are looking into whether the fatal stabbing is connected to another robbery nearby that took place on Dec. 5. In that case, on Dec. 5, a 19-year-old man was robbed near 114th Street and Riverside Drive by two men who fled the park afterward, cops said. Thirty skinny, overgrown, vertical acres, it forms a split-level boundary between the promontory where Columbia University and Barnard College stand, fortresslike, and the flats of Harlem, its elegant brownstones mixed with storefronts and public housing. The email was sincere, even anguished, but these two little words, off campus, reflected a lawyers touch, a self-protective assertion, in writing, defining the costs and risks of living in a big city as beyond the jurisdiction of the college recruiting students there. So while the elementary school at P.S. These are our kids. Haynes believes that only a child whos too eager to please would do such a thing. Harlem residents Calvin Hunt and his son, Cameron, outside a court where one of the accused appeared. President Beilock also hired a consulting firm to investigate the incident, and on August 15, she wrote a letter to the whole community, vowing to take the necessary steps to address any racial and other forms of bias and inequitable enforcement of campus policies., According to the consultants report, the biggest safety hazard had nothing to do with race. In November, Taylor counted 23 street lamps out in Morningside Park, at least five in the area at the base of the steps. Majors takes his job as Tesss representative seriously. No one called a lawyer. (Harlem is block by block, gentrifiers like to say.) I embrace the culture of positivity and growth at Barnard., Majors' family released a statement Thursday afternoon, calling her "a light that shined brightly and our hearts will never be the same. And then there were the parents of older children who were friends with these kids, who might have invited them home. Why Did Fox News Fire Tucker Carlson? Its been a decade since theyve made it this far in the playoffs. It wasn't clear if that person matched the description of one of the two suspects from the other robbery. Some privately wondered why this grief was so different, larger than that following other tragic deaths of young people. He looks like Tess, except his face is rounder and bleak. But when the police officer asked him what apartment the cousin lived in, he hesitated and said, Um, um, and then said he was inside the vestibule because he was getting warm. Ramos-Luna took the boys name and address and the phone number of his uncle, his guardian. The park was neglected. Add to List. NBC New Yorks Ray Villeda reports. He needed to be in school. Im the youngest one, Im going to pick the knife up and give it to them. All of Ron DeSantiss Crimes Against Good Etiquette. HARLEM, NY For the second time in two years, the deadly stabbing of a Columbia University student has sent shockwaves of grief through the neighborhood and revived safety concerns about. Melony, another Columbia student who also declined to give her last name, also said there had not been any warnings given about Morningside Park. After that, the older ones went through her pockets and then they all ran. Its stigmatizing young men and boys. Then the boy looked at the pictures from the park. Despite the park technically being off campus, it is dismissive to disconnect Barnard from the greater Morningside Heights area. In an email to me, Beilock said its a balancing act: We discussed the importance of urban sense and safety with our students, but at the same time want them to experience the wonderful neighborhood that Barnard calls home., In retrospect, Coleman Hughes can see how Alex McNab and Tessa Majors are ensnared in the same seemingly borderless conversation about safety and race. ", "Institutions are responsible for that immediate sidewalk, the street in between, and anything on the opposite sidewalk," but not what's on the other side of the sidewalk if there is a barrier or wall, Boyer said. 180 has changed, too; it is now that precious commodity, a hot public school. At the 26th precinct, the baby-faced boy had to empty his pockets and hand over his backpack. Police have arrested a 13-year-old boy in connection with the murder of 18-year-old Tessa Majors, a first-year Barnard College student who was fatally stabbed in Morningside Park on Wednesday.. The media bet its future on Facebook. The Stabbing in Morningside Park. There, a Columbia University Public Safety Officer stationed at a guard post saw her and called 911. Additional reporting by Jen Chung and Christopher Robbins. She was disarmingly direct. It was at the base of steps into the park where the attack happened, law enforcement officials said. The NYPD has stepped up its presence in the area in the meantime. Sasha Hochman met Tess on the fourth night of school when they went out with a big group of first-years into the city, and while they never became close friends, Sasha liked seeing Tess in the elevator or the cafeteria. I mean, this is a big city. Thats where she fell, less than half a mile from the dorm complex she shared with 600 other first-year students. This same boy, the one who was bitten (and who police say robbed another man at knifepoint that same week), then stabbed Tess with enough force that the youngest boy, who was standing apart, could see feathers shooting out of Tesss down jacket I think it was purple, he said. On abortion, Disney, and the presidents mortality, the long-shot presidential candidate seemed inclined to do almost anything to make headlines. But Justice has to survive a primary challenge. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger also released a statement, describing her attack Thursday as an "unthinkable tragedy." There have been 10 auto thefts reported in Morningside in 2023. . But the distance was self-protective, she explained: I personally did not understand why someone would be mean just for the sake of it. As she grew older, she came to understand that knowing other people was worth the risk. Immediately, the murder felt to the community and the city like a buried memory of an earlier, more violent time. Soon after, the group ran out of the park as Majors stumbled up the stairs in a desperate attempt to get help. Police had been questioning two teenagers in connection to the slaying, but both were released Thursday evening and no arrests have yet been made. Justice Department lawyers said in a court filing that the suspected leaker had a history of making disturbing comments online. Up at Barnard, grief settled on the campus like a fog. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google They approached Tess and asked for her stuff, the boy said. This is one of the people who insisted that all of the memorials for Tess be named celebrations, that they be saturated with music Sly & the Family Stone and Paul Simon and Violent Femmes that people dance and sing if so moved, that the lyrics to Prom Queen, Tesss song about falling in love with a girl, be printed on the back of the program. Jerome Powell Got Punked by Russian Prank Callers. "I try to stay in safe places, places I know are . I want every student and every member of faculty to know your city will be with you in the days ahead. We were all falling asleep. The second text came in at 10:30. 180, a uniform school. Brad Taylor got his Parks patrol officers, six of them, stationed full time in a little house by the playground. Crime statistics show more robberies have been reported in Morningside Park this year than any other city park. While awaiting his trial in April, the boy has been held at Crossroads detention center, a place sometimes referred to as gladiator school. Whatever happens, this boy will get off easy, compared to his friends. (Tess apparently did have a bag of marijuana in her pocket when she encountered the boys, but the altercation was not part of a drug deal.) The man was crossing North Main Street in the 2700 block when he was hit by a car . "As a general rule, most of the students, they want to be warned about serious crimes that affect their safetyand they demand it." I can tell you I know ten young men who look like this young man. Fathers, she added, took the poster campaign especially hard. There was a struggle. Banks of blinding lights, powered by generators and with enough wattage to illuminate a night baseball game, were rolled into the park and stationed at previously dim intersections. Lighting everywhere was terrible, the surveillance cameras ancient. Barnard College's Director of Media Relations, Kathryn Gerlach, declined to answer multiple questions about whether the school cautioned students about entering the notoriously dangerous park before Majors was fatally stabbed. The boy and his friends ducked into the vestibule of a building on 119th Street, and together with two other officers, Ramos-Luna followed them in. Places to Live Washington, D.C. Area. Ninety-nine Morningside offers a final opportunity to own on Morningside Park; 11 Hancock promises terraces and views of peaceful Morningside Park.. But the park was not entirely keeping pace with the gentrification around it. IN the hour before sunset on June 30, Calvin Chu was with his wife, Melissa, and 15-month-old daughter, Emma, at the playground in Morningside Park, awaiting the . The uniform crime reports program represents approximately 309 million American residents, which results in 98% . The former president would likely have a better chance of defeating Biden in 2024 than he did in 2020. "She staggered her way up the street. Students of color said they were frequently targeted by campus police, leading to arbitrary stops and ID checks. The university spokesperson pointed to a "crime informationals" section of the public safety website that offer details about other incidents. A running list of all the alleged personal slights and rude behavior that may hamper Ron DeSantis in his 2024 primary battle with Donald Trump. With both cases, Hughes believes public safety has been collateral damage in the effort to expunge racism. "We are thankful for the incredible outpouring of love and support we have received from across the country. One of the security guards saw her and called 911. "There's a reasonable expectation that if theres a threat to students thats occurring near the campus, a timely warning is appropriate in the most serious of threats," Carter said, who has written about off-campus safety warnings. But more than that she was bold, as a fellow first-year put it. National Abortion Ban Is a Trap for 2024 Republicans. But in part because of the rate of neighborhood change, the middle school at P.S. But beginning in the spring of 2019, the NYPD noted a surge of robberies in Morningside Park, 17 compared to seven the year before, and at the 26th Precinct, police detected a pattern. Sign up here to get it nightly. In the case of Mr. Giri, the police quickly arrested someone a 25-year-old, Vincent Pinkney, with a criminal record, who is accused of wounding a second person that same night, a Columbia. Hughes isnt just a Columbia undergraduate; thanks to a series of provocative essays on race in America for Quillette, hes also become, over the past several years, a hero of the intellectual dark web, a loose group of thinkers who reject the shibboleths of liberal culture (while keeping some distance from the Trump-era right). But the intervening years had inverted the optics, as well as the emotional and political response. The park where 18-year-old Tessa Majors was stabbed to death in a brutal robbery is also where most robberies were reported this year among all New York City parks, according to the police department crime statistics. All rights reserved. In a statement, Barnard said they sent an emergency text notification alert "to all registered students, faculty, and staff about police investigating a robbery/stabbing inside Morningside Park. add-to-list. The morning after the murder, Morningside Park was crawling with police. He was holding $6 in cash. And the paper, when she wrote it, was in the form of a letter to Tess on the subject of appropriate justice for the alleged perpetrators: What would justice look like in your case, Tess? Niche. New information in the investigation showed that 18-year-old Tessa Majors was in Morningside Park just before 7 p.m. Wednesday when she was a victim of a "robbery gone wrong," according to police. He has nervous habits. North Carolina Court Deals Big Blow to Dems Chances of Retaking the House. Theyll commit these crimes in broad daylight, says Jason Harper, communications chief at the Two-Six. The administration held listening sessions. He considered knifepoint robberies to be of a serious threat nature. Columbia and Barnard hold programs in the school, but they are piecemeal. But 13 is the boundary. Over the course of February and early March, certain things have become normal to the baby-faced boy. The victim was a Barnard student. Some people at the vigil carried bouquets of flowers that they set in a circle in the courtyard of the school. "It's not safe. It was around dinnertime. As police questioned and released two teenagers in connection to the stabbing death of Tess Majors, the community gathered to remember her and wonder how this could have happened. She stumbled up some stairs where she was found by a security guard, and later died. Sketchy news reports outpaced the internal notifications, and parents began texting, calling, sending links. Theyre not long-term thinkers. I want to tell you, Taylonn Murphy said to me, sitting in his office at Manhattans family court, where he works to help people navigate the system, that was our worst fear: that someone from up the hill would come down the hill and one of the students would be killed. Murphys own teenage daughter, a basketball phenom nicknamed Chicken, had been murdered in a gang shooting in 2011. But resolving the housing crisis will require the government to become a housing developer. Thats how much of a good kid he was, Haynes says. Back to Full Profile. The day after the murder, Iesha Sekou, who runs an anti-violence program in Harlem, started getting phone calls from concerned parents, telling her about police coming to their apartments unannounced and without warrants and stopping children riding on bikes. Looking back at the brawls, thrills, and temporary insanity of the 90s feud between the New York Knicks and the Miami Heat. There were calls for more police, better police, different police, especially police who patrol on foot and know the neighborhood; for more sophisticated surveillance cameras; for after-school programs for youth and social workers in schools and good summer jobs. A man allegedly killed 5 of his neighbors on Friday night shortly after they asked him to stop shooting his gun so their baby could sleep. The Democrat and Chronicle, citing US Department of Education data, reported that the Morningside Heights campus of 31,000 logged a 45 percent spike in crime in 2019, to 83 from 57 incidents.. Why was she there?". Incredibly, the first president to conceal a television behind the, Republicans Get Prize Recruit Jim Justice to Take On Joe Manchin. A 12-year-old girl allegedly took part in a spree of robberies around Morningside Park in April; long-time LGBT and AIDS activist Bob Lederer suffered traumatic brain injury after he was beaten and kicked in the head by a group of youths in Morningside Park on April 17; and in November the NYPD made arrests in a pattern of robbery cases in the area that "parallels this incident here," NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said at the Thursday news conference. I dont know about stabbing. How can we talk about crime without talking about all the reasons crime happens in the first place? asks Amari Gaiter, a junior who is a member of Columbias Women of Color Pre-Law Society, which produced an open letter to Beilock and Bollinger demanding fair process for any suspects. Even though the assault did not involve a Columbia or Barnard student, they wrote, multiple students saw the incident from our windows, and its unbelievable that we had to learn of information from outside sources to prepare ourselves. They continued: There has been increased crime in the Morningside Park area since last year, and there was an extremely violent attack in April that students were never notified about. Dont worry sources say the Trumps still have a more than suitable partners arrangement. Aww! Everything happened very quickly, within two or three minutes. It was then, Ramos-Luna testified, that he noticed that the boys clothing matched one of the figures on his phone. The stairs in Morningside Park on December 15, four days after the fatal stabbing there of Barnard student Tessa Majors. That's because the parkwhich is across the street from Columbia property, sits between Columbia and a Barnard student dormitory on 110th Street, and is used by students to get to Columbia from off-campus apartments in Harlem or from the 116th subway stationis not considered a "Clery location.". But he could have not been a student. And upon arriving at the park, the grieving students found the gathering of hundreds had the tone more of a political rally than of a commemoration: The whole thing felt off. A horrific crime: Tessa Majors, an 18-year-old Barnard first-year student, was killed in Morningside Park in December. A U.S. Department of Education Handbook for Campus Safety and Security Reporting (PDF, page 2-15) states, If the public park is on the opposite side of the street from your campus, do not include it in your public property category., Abigail Boyer, the associate executive director for the Clery Center, a group that helps schools comply with the law, said that this is known as the "sidewalk-street-sidewalk rule. The safest course was to bypass it completely. He would come back when he could, he promised: As soon as they call me, Ill be here.. Her smile, Sasha says, gave her a feeling of reassurance and closeness; it promised adventure. Students stood around as one local politician after another took hold of the mic and harped on a pet cause of or solution to the horrifying violence that had occurred where they stood. For other major crimes in 2019, Morningside Park is way down the list at 16. "That's part of the challenge incorporating public property into the reporting requirements at all. "We are devastated by the senseless loss of our beautiful and talented Tess," Majors' family said in a statement Friday. If you live in that area and youre young and in the park, youre violent. She said that Morningside Park's risks were so well known in her circle of friends. 180, the parents were reeling. He was in the park with his friends, he said. Hochman wants to major in unafraid. Subscribe Now! Where do you draw that line? @NYPDDetectives are working tirelessly to bring those responsible to justice. "It is their responsibility as an institution to not just tell them about the great things of this city, but to also talk to them about the possibility of dangers," Sekou added. But, as Ramos-Luna testified later in family court, he could make out what people were wearing, and at least one had on khaki pants, a black coat with red zippers, red sneakers, and a book bag with a white logo. A combination of skill, grit, and luck could propel them farther. He should have just left it. I embrace the culture of positivity and growth at Barnard.. Suburb in Maryland; Rating 4.14 out of 5 14 reviews. . Although crime has since plummeted to historic lows in the 30 years since, Morningside Park's notoriety as a dangerous place is hardly a thing of the past. The college freshman was able to fight back, biting one of her attackers on the finger, police said. but recent crime data is . Explore crime rates for Morningside, MD including murder, assault, and property crime statistics. Little by little, over about two hours, a story came out. The weirdest thing about you was her favorite thing about you, a close friend said at her memorial down in Charlottesville. 2023 New York Public Radio. They asked if I felt safe walking through New York, and I was like, Oh, yeah, I feel totally safe. And my dad was like, Its good that you feel safe, but dont be nave..