When an innocent 18-year-old girl is savagely murdered, the back story becomes unimportant, but in the case of Barnard College freshman Tessa Majors it only adds to the tragedy. According to police, she was reportedly in Morningside Park to buy pot.
By Tom Roberts
“What I am understanding is that [Majors] was in the park to buy marijuana,” Sergeants Benevolent Association president Ed Mullins told radio host John Catsimatidis on his AM 970 show, “The Cats Roundtable.”
“Here we have a student murdered by a 13-year-old, we have a common denominator: marijuana,” said Mullins.
One of the animals charged with the murder of the Barnard College freshman reportedly told police that “he and two middle-school buddies robbed her before one of the boys knifed her, sources said. It wasn’t clear what sparked the fatal knifing or whether the boys were involved in any drug deal that went down or one that was supposed to,” the New York Post reported.
However, the report that Majors was seeking to purchase marijuana may have been inaccurate. NBC News has reported that the girls’ family “issued a searing rebuke Monday of the police union president’s radio comment a day earlier that she was in the park to buy pot.
“The remarks by Sergeants Benevolent Association president Ed Mullins we find deeply inappropriate, as they intentionally or unintentionally direct blame onto Tess, a young woman, for her own murder,” the family said Monday. “We would ask Mr. Mullins not to engage in such irresponsible public speculation, just as the NYPD asked our family not to comment as it conducts the investigation.”
Majors “was in the park just before 7 p.m. Wednesday when, according to the NYPD, she was a victim of a “robbery gone wrong.” The NYPD has not mentioned anything about a possible marijuana connection,” according to NBC. “A 13-year-old boy has been charged with second-degree murder and other crimes as a juvenile in Majors’ death — and last week, a 14-year-old was being questioned by the NYPD based on the younger boy’s statements, a senior law enforcement official previously told News 4.”
The outpouring of grief has been substantial. CBS reported that the “grieving Barnard College community came together once again Sunday night to mourn the tragic killing of an 18-year-old student, stabbed to death in Morningside Park on Wednesday evening.
On Sunday, hundreds gathered, fighting back tears, embracing and comforting each other as they mourned the loss of the talented musician, singer and aspiring journalist. “
“The fact that she’s not going to have any of those experiences, that’s what I’m thinking about. That’s what I’m feeling,” Barnard College graduate Darcy Cassidy told CBS. “Tessa must have been extraordinary. Feminist, iconoclast, musician, friend … I want to know more about Tess. Together we will, we must, find en enduring way to remember and honor her,” added Lisa Carnoy, co-chair of the Columbia University Board of Trustees.”