Teen charged in fatal stabbing of college student in NYC park

NEW YORK — A 14year-old boy has been arrested in the fatal park stabbing of a Barnard College student during a robbery Dec. 11, a crime that rattled New York City residents, authorities said Saturday.

Rashaun Weaver has been indicted by a grand jury and was taken into custody Friday night without incident, New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said.

Weaver, charged with second-degree murder and robbery, is the second teen to be charged in the attack on Tessa Majors, 18, of

Charlottesville, Va. A 13year-old was arrested Dec. 13 and charged as a juvenile.

“We are confident that we have the person in custody who stabbed her,” Shea said of Weaver.

The Associated Press is naming Weaver because of the seriousness of the crime and because he has been charged as an adult. Weaver’s attorney, Elsie Chandler, did not return a call seeking comment.

“He’s a 14-year-old child and he’s presumed not guilty,” Chandler told the New York Post after Weaver’s bail hearing Saturday, at which he was ordered held at a juvenile facility until his arraignment Wednesday.

Majors was stabbed as she walked through Morningside Park. She staggered up a flight of stairs and collapsed in a crosswalk.

Weaver said Majors was “hanging onto her phone” when he tried to take it, according to a criminal complaint.

The attack troubled residents because of its proximity to campus and its apparent randomness. Barnard is part of the Ivy League’s Columbia University.