Death Brings Security Into Question, Students and Administrators Address Local Safety

While the campus mourns the loss of Minghui Yu, a student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences who was killed by a passing car Friday night while fleeing an assailant, the circumstances of the tragedy have raised larger questions about juvenile crime and the strength of security on and around campus.

Yu, a 24-year-old statistics Ph.D. candidate, was struck by an SUV around 9 p.m. Friday as he ran into the street after being assaulted on the corner of W. 122nd Street and Broadway. Three people were present at the scene, but after questioning them, police charged only one with being involved in the assault. Fourteen-year-old Sheldon J.—authorities would not release his full name because he is a juvenile—was arrested and charged Saturday night with manslaughter in the second degree.

In a court proceeding Monday, Sheldon was assigned defense attorneys, and a judge determined that Family Court had jurisdiction over the matter, as Sheldon will be prosecuted as a juvenile offender. Family Court often handles cases of juvenile crime.

Sheldon will be held in a juvenile detention facility until his arraignment on Thursday.

According to Columbia Law School professor Jeffrey Fagan, juvenile prosecution allows for greater rehabilitation than the adult correctional system and prevents the lifelong stigma of a permanent criminal record. Fagan said, “He’ll be in an environment where people will be at least nominally concerned with making sure he doesn’t screw up when he goes back out.”

The group setting may have provided Sheldon with the “additional motivation of trying to look good in the eyes of peers,” Fagan added. “Kids are risk takers—this kid took a huge risk and discounted what the cost of this risk was.”

Yu is at least the third student this semester to have been hit by a car, but the first fatality. The case is strikingly similar to one two years ago, in which a 20-year-old New York University student was killed by a passing car as he fled a robbery and assault by five teenagers, who—unlike Sheldon—were charged as adults with robbery and murder.

The immediate aftermath of the tragedy has caused some students—especially those who were closest to Yu—to question their safety on and around campus. Students interviewed were particularly taken aback because the crime occurred early at night and only a few blocks from the main campus.

“After a few months [of living near campus], I thought things were OK ... I think it [Yu’s death] makes people feel scared again,” said Hui-Rung Huang, a student in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and a resident of Yu’s building. “I don’t really know what’s going on around here.”

Others expressed concern about walking north of campus, where Yu was assaulted. “It’s not that safe as I imagined,” said Mi Yang, a Chinese engineering graduate student who is living in the United States for the first time. Yu was a native of China, where he lived until he began studying at Columbia.

Associate Vice President for Public Safety James McShane described standard security measures in a University-wide e-mail sent Sunday. Currently, public safety officers patrol campus and the surrounding area both on foot and by car, and are stationed at various posts.

“In recent months we have increased our foot patrols throughout the area, and as of this weekend, we have added an additional patrol vehicle to expand our presence further within Morningside Heights,” McShane wrote in the e-mail. He declined to comment further than his written statement.

Alix Pianin contributed to this article.

daniel.amzallag@columbiaspectator.com