But the intervening years had inverted the optics, as well as the emotional and political response. All rights reserved, stabbing death of a Barnard College student, more robberies have been reported in Morningside Park this year than any other city park, 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, Tessa Majors was a freshman at Barnard College when she was stabbed in Morningside Park in what police say was a robbery, The 18-year-old fought off her attackers as best she could, biting one of them on the finger, One teenager has been arrested and another questioned as police look for other suspects, law enforcement sources tell News 4. Ninety-nine Morningside offers a final opportunity to own on Morningside Park; 11 Hancock promises terraces and views of peaceful Morningside Park.. 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. Now, throughout the hallways where the first-years lived and where a group had recently commandeered a communal bathroom at midnight to help Tess dye her hair seaweed green, you could hear people scream. 180, the parents were reeling. 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. Majors takes his job as Tesss representative seriously. This was weird, but not too weird. Expect email shortly, including information about counseling hours. In the dorms, the first-years began to panic, Oh my God, holy shit, it could be anyone. She was disarmingly direct. In the daytime, you stayed on top of your kids, says one longtime Harlem homeowner. The detective asked the boy if his uncle a diabetic who, in the videotape, called himself a very sick man and had looked after the boy since 2016, when the boys mother died had taught him right from wrong. The safest course was to bypass it completely. Columbia issued 28 "Clery Crime Alerts" so far in 2019, according to Columbia University's public safety website, but none warn students of the spree of assaults and robberies that occurred in Morningside Park this year. pic.twitter.com/3Trb5wQ1Dr. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google What We Know. 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. Cop cars drove up on the sidewalks, and the machine-gun chop of helicopters filled the air. Tess refused to hand over her phone. 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! Thats a lot. At this point, she and her friends in the neighborhood prefer to reserve judgment. We were all falling asleep. People growing up in Harlem in the 60s and 70s called the neighborhood of the university up the hill and their own down the hill, and they rarely if ever traveled the turf in between. As beautiful as it looks today, back in the 1990s "it was pitch black. Inglewood is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Majors was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai/St. "Juveniles anywhere from 14 to 16 years of age arrested in that pattern," Shea said. Did it learn from that mistake? A suspect wanted in connection with a stalking case was shot by a Placentia police detective in Fullerton on Tuesday, April 25, officials said. The college kept the counseling center open and added extra staff. "As a general rule, most of the students, they want to be warned about serious crimes that affect their safetyand they demand it." Please avoid the area.. Additional reporting by Jen Chung and Christopher Robbins. It was something Ive never seen in Morningside Park. The man was crossing North Main Street in the 2700 block when he was hit by a car . 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. Honestly, as a Barnard student, I never entered Morningside Park, she says, and I never thought that being warned against it was in any way notable. 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. During the interrogation, the boy implicated his two older friends. I dont know about stabbing, the boy said. If you lie, youre going to get in serious trouble. He mentioned the stabbing. The boy is escorted in by an officer with a gun, his hands cuffed behind his back. Im stuck in my head cuz m falling so hard/And I know that shes still up with the stars., One day in February, the boys lawyer, Hannah Kaplan, argued for the fifth time for parole. Crime statistics show more robberies have been reported in Morningside Park this year than any other city park. The video was poor quality, the stills dark and blurry, faces unidentifiable. 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. You cant walk there. Everything Is Breaking the Knicks Way Now. At sunset on December 15, Barnard and Columbia students flowed eastward to the steps in Morningside Park, some holding candles, for a vigil in Tesss memory. In the courtroom, theres another frequent visitor. On the night of December 11, Metcalf says, things were open! She was a first-year college student who moved to the Big Apple from Virginia, according to the school. They werent disinvited. 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.. Most GOP presidential candidates consider a ban unpopular and unfeasible. Still, Kopyto said, she could see how someone "who was from out of town, or who was out-of-the-loop," would not know. 180, a uniform school. but recent crime data is . Tess was tiny and feminine and among her peers had started to use they/them pronouns, although she didnt insist on it. We will keep this community safe, arrest the perpetrators and ensure nothing like this can happen again., Then, in a radio interview, Ed Mullins, the head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, alleged that Tess had been in the park buying pot, blaming the murder on hands-off policing. The uncle responded with disbelief and something like fury. A longtime Harlem homeowner looked at the police presence cynically, as a performance designed to quell the race-based anxieties of white people in Harlem and Morningside Heights. Tessa Majors, 18 years old, died Wednesday evening after a group attacked and robbed her in Morningside Park, said New . He looks like Tess, except his face is rounder and bleak. Kaplan pointed to the boys recent progress report: He had only been acting out a little bit and only with some of the younger staff, refusing to do things like get out of a chair. Tesss parents, who had remained mostly silent, were infuriated to see their daughter deployed as a political puppet, and released an excoriating statement. But he could have not been a student. From todays vantage point, I can see that this was racial code, but then I thought, Okay., Over the decades, the city got safer and the neighborhood did too. Challenging, said a Barnard administrator. Hochman wants to major in unafraid. He was arraigned in Manhattan family court later in the day. I collapsed on the ground, heaving, she said. I saw them taking the posters down and ripping them up, she says, an emotional response to this face that might have been their own 20 years ago. Tessa Majors was a freshman at Barnard College when she was stabbed in Morningside Park in what police say was a robbery. The second text came in at 10:30. "During the struggle, one of the individuals pulled out a knife and stabbed her several times," said the NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison. (Harlem is block by block, gentrifiers like to say.) That was unsayable at the time. I personally did not pay attention, recalls Tehila Cherry, who is from San Diego. You have to be honest with me, he said, because this is very serious., The friends were a little older, both 14. Theres a dog run and a Greenmarket on Saturdays and a new playground near the foot of the steps where Tess was stabbed. One of the older boys held her while the other tried to grab her belongings, including her phone. The tabloids have said that he has a hard time paying attention, but this isnt altogether true. The 18-year-old fought off her attackers as best she could, biting one of . By last year, even families zoned for the school were put on waiting lists; annual PTA fund-raising soared to $100,000 from $40,000 in four years. She was pronounced dead after being rushed to the hospital. There was nothing specifically that I can remember about, Dont go in Morningside Park after dark, says Sasha Hochman, who is from Philadelphia. In this Dec. 15, 2019, file photo, views of the crime scene are shown in Morningside Park four days after Tessa Majors, a Barnard freshman, was murdered, in New York. I was told not to walk through that park," Melony said. 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. Acevedo asked. Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis . The one story you shouldnt miss today, selected by, This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google, Long Live the White House Correspondents Dinner. 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. "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. Majors was from Charlottesville, Virginia. Explore crime rates for Morningside, MD including murder, assault, and property crime statistics. He wears a dark suit and dress shoes and a metallic blue tie the color of Tesss eyes.