A Harvard University senior was ordered to leave campus and told she could not graduate this month because of her suspected role in the fatal shooting of 21-year-old Justin Cosby in a Harvard dorm last week, according to news reports.
Chanequa N. Campbell — a friend of Harvard senior Brittany J. Smith, the girlfriend of shooting suspect Jabrai Jordan Copney — says that the university is singling her out because of her race.
“The honest answer to that is that I’m black and I’m poor and I’m from New York and I walk a certain way and I keep my clothes a certain way,” she told The Boston Globe.
Legislation to ban the death penalty in Connecticut has hit a potentially fatal roadblock — the veto pen.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell took the unusual step Friday of threatening to veto the bill before it has even come to her for consideration. In a statement, Rell said she understands both sides of the contentious issue but nevertheless concluded with a terse promise: “I will veto this bill as soon as it hits my desk.”
Police have arrested 20 year-old New York City resident Jabrai Jordan Copney for the murder of Justin Cosby that occurred in the basement of Harvard’s Kirkland House, according to The Boston Globe. Copney, who is not a Harvard student, turned himself into police Thursday night. In a statement, prosecutors said they believed Cosby and Copney knew each other and that other people were involved in the confrontation as well.
The Harvard Crimson reported Thursday that Cosby may have been selling marijuana to students at the college. Police are investigating if that is the reason that he was in Kirkland House.
The man shot in the basement of Kirkland House at Harvard University yesterday died as a result of his injuries Tuesday morning, according to The Associated Press. The man, who has been identified as 21-year-old Justin Cosby, was a Cambridge resident and attended Salem State College. As of Tuesday afternoon, no arrests had been made.
Updated 10:21 p.m. An unidentified man was shot in one of Harvard’s undergraduate residences around 5 p.m. today, the authorities said.
Police believe the shooting — which occurred in Kirkland House — was in isolated incident and that the suspects have fled the area, Harvard officials said in a message posted to the university’s Web site. The victim, whose identity has not been released, was hospitalized in stable condition, The Harvard Crimson reported. After the shooting, Harvard officials asked all affiliates to stay indoors, but the university has now said members of the community are free to resume their normal activity.
It was not immediately clear whether the victim was a Harvard student, although The Crimson quoted a student as saying the victim appeared to be a “college-aged” black male.
Kirkland House Master Tom Conley described the incident to the newspaper as “in most likelihood a targeted shooting.” He could not confirm whether the victim was a Harvard student but told The Crimson that the victim was not a resident of Kirkland, one of Harvard’s 12 undergraduate houses.
Most Harvard undergraduates are still on campus as final exams do not end until Friday.
Updated Wednesday 11:14 a.m. Three people were shot near Edgewood Avenue and Kensington Street this evening, within a half mile of Pierson College, police said.
The shooting occurred at approximately 7:02 p.m., the New Haven Police Department reported. Police said there were three victims but did not identify them. One person sustained a wound to the back and another to the wrist; the third person was struck by gunfire but was not injured.
How did the third man avoid injury? The bullet apparently struck the man’s wallet, which stopped it from piercing his body, according to the New Haven Independent.
One of the above men is an accused killer. The other is an associate professor of sociology at Cornell University. Both are named Stephen Morgan. And for a while yesterday, it was unclear which of them the public was supposed to be afraid of.
Somehow, a photograph of Professor Stephen Morgan (left) — not gun-toting 29-year-old Stephen Morgan (right) — wound up broadcast on national television yesterday, described as an image of the suspect who at the time was the subject of a manhunt at Wesleyan University following the slaying of a student on Wednesday.
Stephen Morgan, the man accused of shooting Wesleyan University junior Johanna Justin-Jinich on Wednesday, turned himself in to Meriden police this evening, The Associated Press reported. A spokesman for the Meriden Police Department said Morgan was turned over to the authorities in Middletown, who are investigating yesterday’s campus shooting.
The Yale Police Department has posted an officer outside the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life in response to the slaying of a Jewish student at Wesleyan University on Wednesday.
The suspect in that killing, 29-year-old Stephen Morgan, who has yet to be apprehended, “expressed threats in his personal journals toward Wesleyan and/or its Jewish students,” as the university put it in a statement on its Web site. Wesleyan remained under lockdown until Thursday evening as a result of the threats, and the authorities asked a synagogue in Middletown, Conn., to close its doors temporarily.
“There will be an officer on Wall Street until the alleged perpetrator is captured,” Lina Zerbarini, Slifka’s director of operations and associate rabbi, wrote to students shortly after 8 p.m. Thursday. “If you see anything suspicious, call Yale Police at 2-4400. Of course, if you sense any immediate threat, call 911.”
Updated Thursday 5:31 p.m. Scary news up Interstate 91 as Wesleyan University has gone into lockdown after a student was shot dead in a bookstore near campus on Wednesday. Officials at the school now say that the suspect in the shooting, who is still on the loose, may have been targeting Wesleyan and its Jewish students.
The authorities in Middletown, Conn., warned students and staff to stay indoors as they searched for the gunman. The student, junior Johanna Justin-Jinich, 21, was shot inside the Red and Black Café inside Broad Street Books, a popular hangout near campus.
Update Saturday 3:35 p.m. A woman visiting from Columbia University was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital with serious injuries after being hit by a bus near the corner of York and Elm streets shortly before 10:30 p.m. Friday, the authorities said. Her condition is unknown, though the New Haven Police Department released a statement early Saturday saying that her injuries were not life-threatening.
According to police and eyewitness reports, the woman’s arm got caught under the bus near the intersection of York and Elm streets. Witnesses reported that she may have been dragged by the bus. At the scene, a CT Transit bus was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape, a bloody pile of groceries and flowers strewn under its right-front wheel.
The sergeant on the scene said the victim — described as an Asian woman in her mid-20s — was found in shock, but conscious. He said police will not know exactly what happened until they conduct an accident reconstruction.
The victim’s name has not been released, though Deputy University Secretary Martha Highsmith said in an e-mail message Saturday that the woman is a Columbia University affiliate.
