But the park was not entirely keeping pace with the gentrification around it. "Juveniles anywhere from 14 to 16 years of age arrested in that pattern," Shea said. 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. This is Inman Majors, Tesss father. Police say 19-year-old Jason Harris was arrested and charged with first-degree criminal sex act. A campuswide text that went out to students and staff late Wednesday said one male suspect may have been wearing a green jacket and a mask. Tess was an artist, a musician who played instruments, wrote songs - one of you today called Tess 'a blazing talent'. After-hours psychological emergency line: (855) 622-1903. He was holding $6 in cash. pic.twitter.com/3Trb5wQ1Dr. "A lot of people got beat-up, jumped, killed in that park.". Theyre not afraid of consequences. She gave it to them. Some privately wondered why this grief was so different, larger than that following other tragic deaths of young people. The Central Park Conservancy has donations of about $50 million a year; Friends of Morningside Park, about $30,000. 180 remained a more challenging place. The incident happened around 5:50 p.m. on the 3200 . (In the upcoming trials, we will see all this, she promised.) "We take very seriously our obligations to keep students, faculty and staff informed, as reflected by the fact that an alert was shared with the Columbia community shortly after we became aware of the crime committedWednesday evening," a university spokesperson said. 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. 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. 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. Melony, another Columbia student who also declined to give her last name, also said there had not been any warnings given about Morningside Park. Barnard, like nearly every other college or university, has to comply with the Clery Act, a federal statute that requires schools to alert students of crimes on campus; at Barnard, and at Columbia too, students receive regular safety warnings about robberies and assaults on school property. Among the woke majority, theres a dismissive attitude about proactive safety. The McNab incident was handled badly, Hughes agrees, but safety actually matters. Chief investigative reporter Jonathan Dienst on crime, corruption and terrorism. After that, the older ones went through her pockets and then they all ran. This was a dog-whistle aimed at law-and-order hard-liners lamenting the erosion of police authority in the years since Ferguson and Black Lives Matter. 180, where the three young assailants went to school, its hopeful, hand-painted slogan reading YOUNG, GIFTED AND HARLEM. Incredibly, the first president to conceal a television behind the, Republicans Get Prize Recruit Jim Justice to Take On Joe Manchin. Police have released vision of men who may be able to assist with investigations into the theft of approximately $463,000 worth of catalytic converters across the South Eastern Region in February. Detectives say the charged teen watched as Majors was stabbed at the base of the steps, feathers coming out of her jacket as she struggled to fight back. Every student was told she could go home for break early, or request extensions on papers or exams, no questions asked. 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.. Theyre not long-term thinkers. Chief investigative reporter Jonathan Dienst on crime, corruption and terrorism. What happened next? Looking back at the brawls, thrills, and temporary insanity of the 90s feud between the New York Knicks and the Miami Heat. Though no official warning about the park was provided by Columbia or Barnard, all three current students said other students had cautioned them not to walk through the park, especially after dark. Why arent programs in the neighborhood talking to one another the Police Athletic League, and the library, and the churches, and the university creating an easy-access network of places where kids feel welcome? That was obvious., Anna Quindlen remembers arriving at Barnard in 1970 and being told, at part of freshman orientation, that should she accidentally miss the subway stop at the front door of campus, she should stay in the station, turn right around, and take the subway back downtown and never try to walk home through the park or Harlem itself. Or how to say it or to whom. Police received a 911 call about the attack just after 5:30 p.m. "During the struggle, one of these individuals pulled out a knife and stabbed our victim several times," Harrison said. The college freshman was able to fight back, biting one of her attackers on the finger, police said. New Luxury Apartments Are Good, Actually. These preliminary hearings went on for weeks; their purpose was for Judge Carol Goldstein to make rulings on admission of evidence. Tess was tiny and feminine and among her peers had started to use they/them pronouns, although she didnt insist on it. Im a mother and a grandmother. The second text came in at 10:30. Im so concerned that they are going to use this as an opportunity to just fuck with young black people and Latino people all day and all night., At the same time, everyone is trying to wrap their heads around what happened. That any step toward justice must include considering Columbias relationship to Harlem. Barnard is proud of its legacy of graduating generations of independent-minded, accomplished women, and Hochman, like the other students I spoke to, didnt want Tesss murder used to incite fear or anxiety about walking alone, about being female, or young, about using public spaces. Texas Family Gunned Down By Neighbor in Horrific Shooting. 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. His body has adapted to the way the cuffs come off and on: He shifts his shoulders and angles his wrists to help out the officer with the key. Notification must be made "in a manner that is timely" and "will aid in the prevention of similar" crimes. Little by little, over about two hours, a story came out. All rights reserved. No one called a lawyer. The community activists knew what was going on and, having watched the neighborhood for decades, understood what kind of conflagration could erupt, even today. It could be your best friend. Text chains with dozens of people on them were circulating, pleading, Say that youre here. In the library, young women began to close their laptops and go in search of their friends. 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. Please avoid the area.. A new report shows just how much the former network star hated his bosses and reaffirms the level of misogyny thrown around at Fox News. In an email to students, the school said that Majors was "just beginning her journey at Barnard and in life.". NBC New York's Ida Siegal reports. Inglewood is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The teenager, now 14 . 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. 3 is Flushing Meadows at 42 reports of major crimes. Scores of young women and men carrying flowers began flowing into the school shorty after 6 p.m. President [Lee] Bollinger and I are committed to doing everything we can to reinstill a sense of safety for all of us in our community, Barnards president, Sian Beilock, told mourners. More People Would Believe Me If I Screamed. 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. Thats how much of a good kid he was, Haynes says. He needed to be home. (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.) I dont know about stabbing, the boy said. Theres a dog run and a Greenmarket on Saturdays and a new playground near the foot of the steps where Tess was stabbed. Terms of Service apply. Paths on the upper level were narrow and overgrown, their sight lines obscure. 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. add-to-list. Im not going to say it was unbelievable, but it was crazy, says Derrick Haynes, a neighborhood activist who is also a basketball coach. Networks pushed out top talent and companies from Disney to BuzzFeed imposed brutal layoffs in a dizzying series of cuts. Majors suffered multiple stab wounds to her face and body in the attack, police said. He would also have seen Tesss body just a few dozen yards from his front door. but recent crime data is . Fearless, said someone who had known her for a very long time. Its a flyer, produced by the Guardian Angels, the vigilante law-enforcement group, that was plastered all over the signposts in Harlem in the weeks before Christmas, including right outside the school. There have been 21 reported muggings in. ", Last nights murder of a young woman near Morningside Park is despicable, unacceptable and goes against everything NYC stands for. Majors moved to New York from Virginia and was a first-year student at the school. Sign up here to get it nightly. (Theres a shuttle bus, but they say waiting for it is an annoyance.) Lots of young women were having nightmares: I was walking down Broadway in broad daylight and feeling threatened by everything and scared.. He shifts positions, leaning forward and back, crossing and uncrossing his long legs. Privacy Policy and He peered down at the phone, then stepped away, picked up his leg and regarded his own foot. Barnard hasnt attended, Harper told me. Barnard had already opened Cathedral Gardens, a swanky dorm with dishwashers, for 92 upperclass students on the parks southeastern corner, and condo high-rises sprouted like beanstalks on the periphery. Im the youngest one, Im going to pick the knife up and give it to them. Rage-filled Samuel Alito Baffled His Fairness is Being Questioned. Crime statistics show more robberies have been reported in Morningside Park this year than any other city park. At P.S. If convicted, they will serve five years to life. That was unsayable at the time. She ended her paper with a quote from Anna Quindlen, who famously said she majored in unafraid at Barnard. We were all falling asleep. I embrace the culture of positivity and growth at Barnard.. Activists in Harlem argued with a grim logic that these were the heirs of the 2014 NYPD anti-gang raids on the Grant and Manhattanville housing projects, in which young men were rousted out of bed by cops in helmets with nightsticks and more than a hundred indicted; those young men had younger siblings, the activists said. Furthermore, my client is not alleged to have stabbed the victim, she said. This was a murder. 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. 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. In the days ahead, please know that all of our campus resources are available for you as we mourn this heartbreaking loss together. "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. Gothamist is a website about New York City news, arts, events and food, brought to you by New York Public Radio. He said he and other members of the university's senior leadership were working closely with Barnard and the NYPD to better understand the details. Weve got this. Instead, the response was self-protective and fragmented. 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). He looks like Tess, except his face is rounder and bleak. "She staggered her way up the street. The school saw itself, and sold itself, as a coveted entry-point to the city bustling, jostling, diverse, and competitive, with all of the conflict pushed out of view. City Councilmember Ydanis Rodrguez, who represents a district far to the north of where everyone stood, called out elite institutions for not doing enough to support the neighborhoods they inhabit. A mandatory safety briefing was part of their orientation, they say, but it was worthless. After Tesss death, Sasha deferred one final paper, for a class called Educational Foundations. He wears a dark winter coat with a gray stripe on the hood that says Calvin Klein, and he keeps it on for hours, even when the courtroom gets stifling, until finally he removes it and then you can see what hes wearing often a baseball shirt, white with blue sleeves. The stabbings, on opposite ends of Morningside Park, were certain to rattle the Columbia University community that populates Morningside Heights. Im being honest. The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act requires colleges and universities that get federal funds to notify students about crime on campus or on public property "adjacent" to campus. Its not an empty word. He continues, Alex McNab was a student. Then the boy looked at the pictures from the park. We got calls that the police were going to peoples homes, knocking on doors, intimidating them., The language used by police and the press to describe the suspects was concerning, too. But no one knew what to do. Judges reopened the door to partisan gerrymandering, and Republicans can expect to gain three to four congressional seats by 2024. A horrific crime: Tessa Majors, an 18-year-old Barnard first-year student, was killed in Morningside Park in December. In the days ahead we will be discussing with the police overall safety in our community and what more we can do to restore that sense of safety we all demand and we all deserve in our broader New York City community.. 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. Subscribe Now! The teen suspect was charged as a juvenile with second-degree murder, armed robbery and criminal possession of a weapon with intent to use, according to a senior law enforcement official. 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. All of Ron DeSantiss Crimes Against Good Etiquette. T&M Protection Resources found safety procedures at Barnard to be haphazard and informal. He did not touch her or take her belongings.. But sometimes people do have knives in their pockets. She found a security guard who called 911, but she was pronounced dead at the hospital. There was a moment of silence before they walked in a long, solemn line into the building. The alert included a description of the suspect and a warning to avoid the area as soon as the office became aware of the assault.". There have been 10 auto thefts reported in Morningside in 2023. . Justice Department lawyers said in a court filing that the suspected leaker had a history of making disturbing comments online. It was creepy and morbid to be on the steps after dark, not soothing or uplifting. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us. "If you talk to the police and look at COMPStat reports, you will see that there are violent acts that happen often in that park, and they should be informing Columbia students about them, said Sekou, the anti-violence worker. Spotting the group from his unmarked police car, Officer Randys Ramos-Luna made a U-turn on Morningside Avenue. A senior law enforcement official told NBC New York that police were questioning a 14-year-old as well, but that teen has not yet been charged. No one was saying, This is our community. Brad Taylor got his Parks patrol officers, six of them, stationed full time in a little house by the playground. The Fed chair thought he was talking to Zelenskyy and gave unusually direct answers to big questions about the economy and interest rates. 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. They had police at the park entrances and exits, around the park, police on horseback. Violent. But more than that she was bold, as a fellow first-year put it. 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 2015, it introduced a Spanish-language-immersion program, attracting the fashion designers, educators, salespeople, and genomics experts who had recently moved to Harlem. Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily. Tessa Majors, 18 years old, died Wednesday evening after a group attacked and robbed her in Morningside Park, said New . Despite being ranked among the safer parks in 2019, the park on W 116th Street had 11 reports of robbery through September compared to 10 at Brooklyn's Prospect Park and 9 at Claremont Park in the Bronx, according to the NYPD. 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. The NYPD is also speaking with a 12-year-old, the official said. In the weeks before Christmas, the DOE held a meeting for concerned parents at the school, but it didnt include the NYPD, Columbia, or Barnard, and the DOE point person turned out to be David Hay, who shortly thereafter was arrested on federal child-pornography charges. "This is an unthinkable tragedy that has shaken us to our core," Barnard President Sian Leah Beilock said in the letter, adding that counseling services would be available all day Thursday. Host Roy Wood Jr. and President Biden made a case for why this goofy event is important. 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. Friends of Morningside Park has sent around a notice about the attacks, and a vigil is set for Thursday, May 9 at 6 pm to call attention to the violence. It was at the base of steps into the park where the attack happened, law enforcement officials said. My friends and I were crying, we were pulling tissues out of our bag, and I heard someone say, Ooh, thats a good shot! Hecklers interrupted at every point. Davis, who is a tall man, hugged the boy hard and long and sobbed with a deep voice. But in part because of the rate of neighborhood change, the middle school at P.S. Its stigmatizing young men and boys. Its possible that RFK Jr. or Marianne Williamson could do well in a primary that Biden cant enter without violating his own partys rules.