Cop-union big’s claim about Tessa
Barnard College freshman Tessa Majors was in Morningside Park to buy pot when she was fatally stabbed by a group of middle-school muggers, a police union official claimed Sunday.
“What I am understanding is that she was in the park to buy marijuana,” Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, told radio host John Catsimatidis on AM 970’s “The Cats Roundtable.”
Police sources told The Post that detectives are investigating a claim by one of Majors’ college friends that the victim told her Wednesday she was headed out to buy pot in the upper Manhattan park, which is just blocks from her on-campus dorm.
Mayor de Blasio said Mullins’ accusations amounted to victimblaming.
“Think of Tessa’s parents, her friends,” the mayor tweeted Sunday night in reference to Mullins’ comments. “This is heartless. It’s infuriating. We don’t shame victims in this city.”
After going to the park last Wednesday, Majors, 18, was jumped and put in a chokehold by three teens in what authorities have called a robbery gone wrong.
She fought back, biting one of her assailants on the finger, but was stabbed in the face, neck and arm by one of the youths, sending a billow of feathers flying out of her down coat, authorities have said.
The wounded teen climbed up a flight of stairs to West 116th Street and Morningside Drive, where she was found by a security guard from nearby Columbia University. She was rushed to a hospital, where she died.
Tracked down through surveillance footage of the trio fleeing the park, 13-year-old Zyairr Davis was arrested Friday and charged in Family Court with murder.
He allegedly admitted to taking part in the robbery and named his two alleged cohorts but denied plunging the blade into Majors, according to authorities.
“He’s doing as well as to be expected,” Neville Mitchell of the Legal Aid Society’s Homicide Defense Task Force said of Davis on Sunday Mitchell left the Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brooklyn, where the young suspect is being held.
A second suspect, 14, was arrested Friday but released by cops on Saturday, with sources saying investigators needed to bolster their case against him before proceeding with charges.
The third suspect, also 14 — and believed to be the alleged stabber — has yet to be located, sources said.
Search warrants have been executed at each of the boys’ homes, according to sources.
Majors’ cellphone was found not far from her body, aiding cops in initially identifying her, but other personal items, including her bag, remain unaccounted for.
Police divers have been spotted searching for evidence in Morningside Pond, the lone body of water in the 30-acre park, which NYPD statistics show has surpassed its already-dangerous reputation in 2019.
Through Dec. 8, violent crime in the park has skyrocketed by 82 percent compared with last year, with robberies nearly doubling from 11 to 21, per department data.
Mullins alleged Sunday that Majors’ murder underscores the city’s “hands-off ” attitude toward quality-of life issues such as marijuana — a dangerous policy that can lead to more crime, he said.
Neighbors have said that young Davis was known to smoke pot.
“We have a common denominator: marijuana,” Mullins said of Majors and Davis, without offering any proof of the claim.
“Why are we accepting the hands-off policy for enforcement of marijuana?” he said. “We see a young girl with a bright future from a good family, her life taken away by a 13-year-old in a park which isn’t safe to begin with.”
Mullins laid part of the blame on de Blasio, a popular punching bag for the police unions.
“I understand the mayor made statements that this is surprising on how this can happen in New York City,” Mullins said.
“I really have to question what world he’s living in, to think that this is surprising.”
Several of Majors’ friends gathered Sunday evening in the park for a candlelight vigil to mourn the aspiring journalist and musician.