The family of an 18-year-old college student murdered in a Manhattan park last week is denouncing allegations from a New York police union official that she was looking to buy marijuana when she was murdered, according to a Daily Beast report.
On Sunday, Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, a major police union in the city, claimed that Tessa Majors had gone to Morningside Park on Dec. 11 looking to purchase weed.
According to the NYPD, the first-year Barnard College student was walking through the park that evening when she was approached by a group of individuals demanding her belongings. The encounter ended with Majors being fatally stabbed, police said.
“An 18-year-old college student at one of the most prestigious universities is murdered in a park, and what I’m understanding, she was in the park to buy marijuana,” Mullins said during an interview with radio host John Catsimatidis on Sunday morning. He went on to complain that the city is “basically hands-off” on enforcing marijuana laws.
Despite Mullins’ claim, New York police have yet to reveal Majors’ reasons for being in Morningside Park the evening she was killed and haven’t released any information suggesting that she was seeking marijuana at the time. The New York Daily News reported that a friend told police she went to the park to jog.
A 13-year-old boy has been arrested in connection with Majors’ murder, but additional details about the crime have been scarce so far.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, Majors’ family denounced Mullins’ allegation as a form of victim-blaming.
“The remarks by Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins we find deeply inappropriate, as they intentionally or unintentionally direct blame onto Tess, a young woman, for her own murder,” they said. They also asked Mullins “not to engage in such irresponsible public speculation, just as the NYPD asked our family not to comment as it conducts the investigation.”
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also denounced Mullins’ comments on Twitter, calling them “heartless” and saying, “We don’t shame victims in this city.”
The Sergeants Benevolent Association, not for the first time, responded to de Blasio’s post with a string of tweets lobbing invective at the mayor.
Mullins and the union did not respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment.