BY THE VILLAGE SUN | A man was stabbed to death in Washington Square Park on Wednesday afternoon.
Police said that officers responded to a 9-1-1 call at 4:25 p.m. of an assault in progress inside the park. They found a 35-year-old male with one stab wound to the chest. He was removed by E.M.S. ambulance to Lenox Health Greenwich Village, at Seventh Avenue and 12th Street, where he was pronounced dead.
A police spokesperson said two suspects fled the scene heading westbound on Waverly Place.
He did not have more details on the victim, the stabbing’s motive or where exactly in the park the stabbing occurred. According to two local sources, though, it happened at the park’s trouble-plagued northwest corner a.k.a. “the drug corner.”
“The good thing is that area is heavily camera’d,” one of the sources said. He added that he heard “helicopters” overhead when the incident occurred. At least one news ’copter, from CBS, was reporting from the scene.
Police have not yet released the victim’s name pending family notification. There are no arrests and the investigation is ongoing.
At a meeting of the 6th Precinct Community Council later in the evening, Captain Jason Zeikel, the precinct’s new commanding officer, who had just been over at the park crime scene, said the slain man is “known to the precinct.”
He assured, “You’re going to see a [police] presence in the park after what happened.”
Zeikel said that since he assumed command of the Greenwich Village precinct in March, crime has been dropping, with the seven major “index crimes” — homicide, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, rape and grand larceny auto — down a combined 24 percent over the last month.
The park needs to be cleaned out .Make it unpleasant for the dealers. The dealers go, then lots of issues around here will clear up.
The Park has not been safe for a long time. When I was asked to join the Safety Committee of the Park Conservancy, we never met, not even once. I resigned in disgust.
The Park is controlled by Will Morrison, who works for the Parks Dept. The Conservancy has now made him its head as well, a sure conflict of interest.
The drug corner is fully one-third of the perimeter now, starting at the Chess tables and across the west side and up the north side to the Arch. People avoid it, or enter that zone at their own risk.
The skateboarders, cyclists and others who are not permitted to do their thing inside the Park are not in any way patrolled. Most days, there is no police presence, and when there is, they do not act but look on hopelessly as if unclear of their guidance to act.
Solution: a new Park head to replace Morrison, and a regular police patrol 24/7, with the cops given authorization to act within clear guidelines. Ideally, the Board of the Conservancy would resign and be replaced by those with the guts and gumption to act.
Cash + Narcotics = Violence
Will citizens be caught in the crossfire next ?
Bust the dealers !!!