Crimes Hit Home in Morningside Heights

At the close of 2007, the New York City Police Department reported significantly declining crime rates, and announced that the city had experienced 496 homicides in the past year, as opposed to 2,245 homicides in 1990.

Still, Morningside Heights and the surrounding Harlem area experienced numerous robberies, assaults, and homicides, eventually culminating in the death of a Columbia graduate student in early April. While the Department of Public Safety has been increasing patrols of the campus and the surrounding area over the past few months, crimes hitting so close to home have left some students rattled.

After a fatal shooting at the local bar Radio Perfecto this December, some residents called for tightened security in the area, while others suggested that Columbia shut down the restaurant—which is in a University-owned building used for graduate student housing—completely.

While some Columbia students were on the scene, the shooting itself did not involve any Columbia students or affiliates. The death of 23-year-old Bronx resident Delquan Kearns and wounding of another came two weeks after residents had reported gunfire outside the bar. The restaurant has not seen any significant violence since.
At the closing of 2007, the 26th Precinct, which extends from W. 113rd Street to W. 141st Street, as well as the 28th Precinct, which includes Central Harlem, saw considerable decreases in homicide rates. The NYPD reported that there had been two murders committed in the 26th Precinct in 2007 and one committed in 2001, as compared to the 15 murders in 1990. Overall, the 496 citywide homicides in 2007 represented a 17 percent decrease from 2006, the city reported.

“It’s not about breaking records or crime suppression alone, it is all about saving lives. That’s something we can all celebrate on New Year’s Eve and then immediately resolve to keep up the good work in 2008,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in a press release.

But the Radio Perfecto shootings were the first in what was a particularly violent couple of months for the area. Between Jan. 8 and Jan. 11, three residents were killed in separate crimes, and in late February, a Harlem resident was stabbed to death in his apartment.

A spate of store robberies also hit Morningside Heights, where at least seven stores were robbed along Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. Police closed in on the culprit, who had perpetrated local stores Aerosoles and Liberty House, at the end of January.

Director of Public Safety James McShane emphasized that these were isolated incidents, and not an indication of a growing trend in local robberies.

“What happens is people get this false impression that crime is up because there are one or two incidents,” McShane said.

But it was the recent death of Minghui Yu, a statistics student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, that shook the campus. After fleeing an alleged assault on a Friday night in early April, Yu was struck by a car, and subsequently died of severe head trauma at St. Luke’s Hospital. Yu was 24.

The assailant attacked Yu on Broadway in between 121st and 122nd streets, in front of the Jewish Theological Seminary. He was hit by the driver in front of the Manhattan School of Music.

In a statement following the death, McShane reported that Public Safety had already been increasing area foot patrols in the preceding months. After Yu was killed, Public Safety dispatched an additional patrol car in the area in order to “expand our presence further” inside Morningside Heights.

Police arrested a suspect in the assault the next day—a 14-year-old male known only as “Sheldon J.” He was charged with second degree manslaughter.

Yu’s death led to an outpouring of grief from students and faculty alike. Despite tightened patrols and assurances of on-campus security—McShane reminded students that Public Safety officers were stationed at posts on campus and in the nearby area, and patrol both on foot and by car—a crime that hit so close to home left some questioning the safety of Columbia and the surrounding area.

“After a few months [of living near campus], I thought things were OK. ... I think it 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, following Yu’s death. “I don’t really know what’s going on around here.”

alix.pianin@columbiaspectator.com