THE ANTI-BLUE U.
Columbia community rips cop patrols despite slays
The union representing Columbia University’s student teachers, like the Ph.D. candidate murdered this month, has called for the school to cut all ties with the NYPD, and many undergrads still push for cops to be banned from campus.
Despite the fatal nearby stabbings of graduate student Davide Giri on Dec. 2 and Barnard College freshman Tessa Majors two years earlier, many at the liberal university remain anti-NYPD.
In June 2020, the organizing committee of Local 2110 of the student-workers union declared its support for George Floyd protesters “fighting the police state.”
In a “Statement on Police Brutality,” the union called on Columbia to “immediately cut ties with the NYPD and the New York City Police Foundation, and divest from any funding for police, ban police from all Columbia campuses, and redirect funds toward supporting Black and Indigenous people.”
The statement came seven months after Majors’ death and a year and a half before union member Giri would be killed.
Local 2110 did not respond to messages seeking comment last week.
Giri, 30, a native of Italy and a teaching assistant at the college, was knifed blocks from the campus in a stabbing spree that left another Columbia student, Roberto Malaspina, 27, wounded.
Majors, 18, was stabbed in December 2019 in a robbery in Morningside Park, a block from Columbia.
After each killing, Columbia pledged to beef up security patrols and increase cooperation with the NYPD.
Columbia President Lee Bollinger pledged to work directly with the NYPD following Giri’s murder.
The NYPD has stepped up its presence in Morningside Park after 7 p.m., and the Parks Department has deployed more of its enforcement officers.
The university added foot patrols on portions of Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue and dedicated more vehicle patrols to Morningside Drive and the park’s perimeter.
Some in and around the campus supported efforts to step up security, but others were crying foul.
“Lots of students don’t want a large presence of cops. When you are on campus you want to feel you are in a safe space from police violence,” sophomore Sayla Roman, 19, The Post outside the campus on Broadway Saturday.
“It makes sense [to have more security] with the recent stabbing, but I don’t want more police presence,” adding, “It’s terrible. Especially at the subway station, there are always public-safety officers there. There is just a lot of them. It’s a serious problem.”
Echoed Columbia student Jack Hietpas, 21: “There is no need for more
police here. It’s a pretty safe neighborhood. The stabbing is not representative of this neighborhood.”