47 CommentsAt around 11:45pm tonight, we received word of an incident on College Walk near the 116th St. gates. Tipsters informed us of a man screaming and being arrested by NYPD with Public Safety on the scene. NYPD told us the person of interest was “emotionally disturbed.” Public Safety had no comment but said they were “currently investigating” the situation. Photos are below, we will update with details as we hear more.
Update (Sunday 9:15): We still haven’t heard back from Public Safety, but DNAinfo reports the following:
The attack happened during a fight between about 20 people at 116th Street and Broadway, police said …
The victim was heard yelling, “Get him off me!” as the attack took place. It took four university security guards to wrestle him to the ground. They held him until police arrived.
Loading …
47 Comments
@Bwod, I need you can we please get more information about this….this is really concerning
@So Was this guy a student or what?
@Anonymous I saw this from my window too, very clearly, right above 115th and Broadway. The guy pinned what seemed to be his girlfriend to the ground and was punching her repeatedly. She was screaming for help to get him off her. Someone tried to intervene and pull the guy off. The public safety guard walked up slowly and stood a few yards back radioing the police. About 20 of what seemed (judging by backpacks) to be Columbia students ran up to try to separate the two. Eventually, they managed to pull the attacker off the girl. He then tried to attack one of the onlookers as well. At that point the guard stepped between them and warned him that things didn’t have to get worse. The attacker kept shouting and throwing a bag that seemed to belong to the guy who pulled him off the girl. Other security guards pulled and walked up. The guy walked onto campus. Security followed. Two ambulances and several police showed up. The attacker kept screaming and shouting and threatening. They rounded a corner and were out of my line of sight for about 30 seconds. Suddenly, the shouting stopped. Complete silence. Four EMTs ran from the ambulances. The came back carrying the attacker’s limp body to an ambulance. I think he had been tased. Everything took about 7 minutes.
@Anonymous She definitely was not his girlfriend and did not know him at all. The man was by himself and started arguing with and attacking onlookers/strangers walking on Broadway.
@cc '11 I don’t know where the info about a fight between 20 people came from. I saw the situation escalate and it really was just this one guy going off for no apparent reason. First he was arguing with another guy, then tried to start a fight with a small group of people, then ran up Broadway and attacked this girl. The only other people involved were trying to stop him.
@Public Safety HEY. WHO SAID THE WORD PARTY?
@... well, shit.
@Anonymous *womAn, sorry guys
@Anonymous *womyn
@Anonymous Public safety is so fucking useless. God forbid a 19 year old is having a beer in EC, but a young women being assaulted in the middle of campus, who cares? Why intervene? It’s not like IT’S YOUR JOB OR ANYTHING.
@Anonymous and imagine if this guy had a gun….
@Anonymous oh, but imagine if we ALL had guns. kiddingggg
@Anonymous I was also watching from my window, and while the Public Safety officer did not touch the disturbed individual, I would not say that nothing was done. He clearly radioed for the others (more campus security and the NYPD) who arrived quickly, and seemed to be trying to get a better sense of what was occurring. Initially, the scuffle didn’t seem different from the rowdy/drunken interactions that frequently happen on Broadway. The woman was surrounded by several people, and even from a high perspective, it was hard to tell/see exactly what was going on. Although it became more clear that it was a problem when she started to say things like, “Get him off of my leg,” I actually still thought they might be fooling around. No, he didn’t get the guy off of her leg, but he did follow as the guy started to move away from the crowd. Public Safety Man had his arms outstretched, and he was telling the guy that “This didn’t have to get worse,” and to “calm down,” as the man screamed and hurled a knapsack/bag down Broadway for several yards at a time. I don’t know exactly what the job description of a Public Safety officer is, but they are not the police. It’s probably best that we all realize this and take precautions to keep ourselves safe.
@Anonymous E-mail your public safety directors:
CU: jfm2112 AT columbia DOT edu
BC: dpennetti AT barnard DOT edu
@does this work? Dear Public Safety Director,
I had multiple friends who witnessed the incident last night involving the “emotionally disturbed” individual. I have heard from many people that public safety did nothing while the attack transpired. I find this not only deeply disturbing but reason to feel very unsafe at Columbia. As a member of the community I just wished to let you know my concerns and hope that every action possible is being taken to avoid similar occurrences in the future.
@Anonymous pretty much exactly what i said
@Anonymous E-mail public safety here with your complaints and shock, like I did:
Barnard: dpennett@barnard.edu
CU: jfm2112@columbia.edu
@Anonymous I could sort of see it happening from my window, it was terrifying. I saw a public safety guard there so I didn’t call the police but I’m SO relieved people did because according to this it doesn’t seem like the guards really did anything. This is really disturbing I hope the administration puts out a statement soon
@Machiavelli “I say, therefore, that the arms with which a prince defends his state are either his own, or they are mercenaries, auxiliaries, or mixed. Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy. The fact is, they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you. They are ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not make war, but if war comes they take themselves off or run from the foe; which I should have little trouble to prove, for the ruin of Italy has been caused by nothing else than by resting all her hopes for many years on mercenaries, and although they formerly made some display and appeared valiant amongst themselves, yet when the foreigners came they showed what they were. Thus it was that Charles, King of France, was allowed to seize Italy with chalk in hand; 1 and he who told us that our sins were the cause of it told the truth, but they were not the sins he imagined, but those which I have related. And as they were the sins of princes, it is the princes who have also suffered the penalty”.
Thus, we have two options my friends. Make public safety citizens of this community by allowing them to sit in classes, funding education and giving them all the rights that a student has or the elimination of public safety and the creation of a student ran; student employed equivalent. Rightfully, public safety didn’t care about the girl being attacked until the problem reached campus because of the contracts between PS and the trustees. But, if the student body felt it was a morally necessary thing to help the girl, then citizens of the school would have stepped up and done it, regardless of risk of reward.
@Anonymous tl;dr
@r u kidding? shut the fuck up. you don’t get anything.
@Anonymous Wow. If the above reports about Public Safety’s inaction are true, people REALLY need to be aware of it. There should be some kind of review. Bwog, you’re in a position to bring attention to this issue — you really should…
@Anonymous Why has this not been reported to the Columbia administration yet??
We’re just going to let this go? Was this girl a Columbia student? This makes me feel so unsafe….
@Anonymous She said she was an alum who graduated last year
@Anonymous so disconcerting; i always thought public safety was my homeboy. is there some reason why they don’t address issues off campus or something? or was it seriously laziness?
@senior solution less money on public safety, more money on better food at lerner.
@Anonymous this is all really fucked up.
@Anonymous why aren’t there more comments on here, yet?!
@uhhh yeah, there was definitely some screaming outside ec just now….and it wasn’t drunk screaming. wtf is going on?! i tried to call campus safety and got “we’re sorry, security is not available at this time. if you’d like to leave a message…” so helpful!
@Anonymous I heard that too. Maybe Columbia is going back to its roots as a loony bin.
@incident He attacked a girl on broadway between 116th and 115th. The only intervention was by a man who was not Public Safety. Public Safety stood there and did nothing while this individual assaulted a girl who was screaming for help. They only intervened when he ran onto College Walk. Otherwise, as he tried to walked away no Public Safety officer intervened and prevented a criminal from leaving the scene.
@Anonymous das messed up
@Anonymous das racist
@last night does anyone know what the deal was with that ec fire alarm? because i want to seek out who ever was responsible, and kill them
@really? because i heard this unearthly high-pitched screaming from my window and it sounded like a girl…..and it sounded like the person was screaming “help me!” or “get off me!”
@really? oh, and wait, this particular incident wasn’t on college walk, it was between 116th and 115th on bway….and it also occurred between 11-12. anyone know what that was about, or if the two incidents are correlated?
@Yes, really This emotionally disturbed individual assaulted two women on Broadway before running onto campus and being taken down by the NYPD, which I personally witnessed. The whole time, he was screaming about Barack Obama and Nazis. Eventually, more NYPD showed up, interviewed witnesses, and called an FDNY ambulance to take him to the hospital.
@cc '11 I called 911 while this was happening and public safety was standing by doing nothing about it. They were going to let this guy go without arresting him after knocking a girl to the ground and punching her repeatedly. The NYPD got there about 10 minutes later – by that time a couple of guys had managed to pull him away and restrain him.
@Anonymous Good job for calling! So few people would act in this situtation!
@emotionally disturbed person JESUS LOVES YOU….HALLELUJAH
@Actually he was yelling (no joke): “Barack Obama is the new god! You people are all Nazis! The Nazis have invaded New York!”
@Anonymous I heard “Barack Obama is a Hindu God”
@Anonymous I heard he wasn’t even born here.
@Anonymous What hath housing selection wrought?
@you are the reason I love columbia
@Anonymous Is public safety allowed to arrest/detain someone in a situation like that?
@Anonymous as long as the person poses imminent or a certain threat to passersby.