Columbia Student Killed
Every one in a while things happen at Ivy League Universities which do not admit of a humorous characterization. This is one of those things.
Columbia is in a state of shock and mourning after grad student Minghui Yu was killed by oncoming traffic, the victim of a botched mugging/hate-crime (details are unclear). From the Times:
The student, Minghui Yu, 24, was on the median on Broadway between 122nd and 123rd Streets about 9 p.m. when a small group of young men drew near and one attacked him, the police said. Mr. Yu struggled and broke free and ran across one southbound lane before being struck by a Jeep Cherokee in the southbound lanes.
According to the Daily News (see also, Gothamist), one of Yu's attackers was heard to boast, "Look what I do to this one," words which have been interpreted by many to have a racial meaning. The age of the arrested suspect: 13-years-old.
As for Yu himself, check out the Spec's bio, which reads in part:
The 24-year-old Graduate School of Arts and Sciences statistics Ph.D. student is remembered by close friends for his joyful attitude toward every aspect of his life-from the pursuit of knowledge in the classroom to the delight of jumping by the shore.
The morning after Yu's tragic death, his friend, Changyao Chen, GSAS '11, wrote in an e-mail, "I still cannot believe this truth ... and I can't stop trembling when I'm typing. He's such a nice guy, living in the same building as I'm, and there's a large Chinese community in this building. Minghui is among the active ones, we hang out a lot when he was here. He's always smiling whenever I met him, I still have to convince myself that we've lost him."
Read that article. It's the least you can do.
Tensions are running high at Bwog (164 comments and rising), and as always with rapidly developing stories, that's the best place to get a handle on things. Some commenters think Columbia didn't do enough to keep the area safe, while others think walking there at night was an unsafe decision.
Some commenters think Yu is a victim of the "Asian stereotype" which made him into an acceptable target for harassment, while others play up the crime-gone-wrong aspect of the scenario. Some commenters think the trauma of gentrification had a role to play, while others are using it as evidence of the need for gentrification.
In the meantime, any kind of editorial judgment on our part would seem premature except this one: beware allegory.
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April 7th, 2008 at 11:54 am
RIP. This is ridiculous.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Man, that’s terrible… :-/ RIP
April 7th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Rest in peace.
April 7th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Fucking ridiculous. RIP, prayers for his family.
April 7th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
similar situation at the university of chicago earlier this year: a foreign graduate student was shot to death a block from his apartment by a group of neighborhood teenagers…tragic
April 7th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Disgusting.
April 7th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
How terrible
April 7th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
So awful… I used to live around that area last year for a few months and once made the foolish decision to go to a fast food restaurant late at night. One diner decided to go off on a long rant about how the Orientals were taking over the neighborhood, and all the other people were nodding their heads as if she made perfect sense. (I was very conspicuously the only Asian person in the place.) And the woman had Crazy Eyes, I’m telling you — I was literally afraid that she might haul off on me, and never went out that late by myself again.
April 8th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Julie, were you on 125th street? What were you thinking??
April 8th, 2008 at 8:12 am
24 is too early for a young, talented person to die. RIP, and my condolences to his family.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:09 am
I don’t remember exactly, but yeah, I think it was 125th and 7th. And I WASN’T thinking, unfortunately (it was that stupid sort of arrogance: “Oh, nothing’s going to happen to me!”). Another time, my roommate and I were out at night (around 8 or 9 pm) going to the grocery store, when these screaming ambulances rushed by us. Later, when we were back at home, we saw it all over the news — a cop had been shot and killed only a few blocks away.
I’ve heard some grumblings that it’s racist to say that the entire neighborhood is dangerous. I don’t know about the crime stats concerning that area or how dangerous it really is, but I do know that I felt unsafe for the months that I lived there.
It’s so sad that this promising scholar met such a tragic end. :( I hear his parents are trying to get a visa to come to the US. I hope they don’t get stuck in all that bureaucratic crap.
April 8th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I think just about the worst follow-up to this whole thing was that CU affiliates received an email after it happened from our security office that discussed at length the safe van service that is available. These emails get sent out all the time, so sure, maybe it’s our fault for not reading them, but a visual reminder in places on campus that are frequented in the late hours (the library, Lerner (the student center), etc.) would likely be an impetus for more students to take advantage of the service.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
so this post wasn’t important enough to warrant a spell-checking?
“every ONCE in a while…”
first line ivygate. come ON.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
RIP. Condolences to everyone that knew him.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
a grad student was murdered at duke earlier this year too.
these things are very sad.
rip
April 9th, 2008 at 10:12 am
According to the felony-murder doctrine, this should be classified as a murder. In 2006, an NYU student was robbed by 13-year olds and killed when he ran into an oncoming car while trying to escape. Those kids were charged with murder. Why not this one?
April 10th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
and you know the columbia hyper-liberals will continue to defend the behavior of predatory inner-city blacks. RIP. this is a shame
April 11th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
and the cornell hyper-assholes will continue to make prejudiced assumptions.