The family of a Barnard College freshman who was found stabbed to death outside of Morningside Park on December 11 is calling on top police union brass to stop needlessly politicizing their daughter’s death.
In a statement shared with Refinery29, the family of the slain student, 18-year-old Tessa Majors, criticized divisive remarks made by Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association. Following a radio interview he did on Sunday morning, Majors' family called the his statements “deeply inappropriate, as they intentionally or unintentionally direct blame onto Tess, a young woman, for her own murder.”
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During an appearance on businessman John Catsimatidis’ morning radio show, Mullins suggested that Majors had been “in the park to buy marijuana” on the morning of her death — a thus-far unsubstantiated claim. Mullins then went on to use Majors’ death as a political cudgel to attack reduced marijuana enforcement and the prospect of legalization in New York City.
“We don’t enforce marijuana laws anymore. We’re basically hands-off on the enforcement of marijuana,” Mullins said during the interview. "So here we have a student murdered by a 13-year-old and we have a common denominator of marijuana. You know, my question to the people of New York City is, ‘Why is this happening?’”
Although police did arrest a 13-year-old boy who admitted to being at the scene of the murder with two other teens (aged 14 and 16), the NYPD has not yet said why Majors was in the park on the morning she was killed, and has not confirmed that marijuana played a role in the murder.
“We would ask Mr. Mullins not to engage in such irresponsible public speculation, just as the NYPD asked our family not to comment as it conducts the investigation,” the family’s statement reads.
“Our family is interested in knowing what exactly happened to Tess and who committed her murder. We believe, for the immediate safety of the community and the surrounding schools, that should be everyone’s top priority and we are grateful to the men and women of the NYPD for all of their efforts,” the statement continues.
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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has a famously contentious relationship with the SBA, called Mullins’ comments “heartless” and “infuriating” in a Sunday night tweet.
“Think of Tessa’s parents, her friends,” de Blasio wrote on Twitter. “We don’t shame victims in this city.”
At the same time, Mullins is busy making a bogeyman out of Majors’ death in an attempt to advocate for stepped up criminalization, it’s also important to note that he also accidentally makes the case for why having safe, legally sanctioned marijuana dispensaries throughout New York City would have helped to prevent the exact type of violence he describes.
Either way, Majors’ death deserves to be mourned without political artifice, separately from the bigger issues of criminality and justice it raises — and both the mayor and the NYPD would do well to take note of that.
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