NEW YORK (AP) — A Columbia University graduate student from Italy was fatally stabbed and another Italian man was wounded in separate attacks near the university’s upper Manhattan campus, authorities said Friday.
The stabbing suspect was arrested in Central Park while menacing a man with a knife, police said in a news release.
The attacks started just before 11 p.m. Thursday when Davide Giri, 30, was stabbed in the stomach on Amsterdam Avenue near the Columbia campus, authorities said. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Columbia president Lee Bollinger identified Giri, a student in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, as the victim in a campuswide email Friday.
“This news is both unspeakably sad and deeply shocking, as it took place only steps from our campus,” Bollinger wrote. “On behalf of the entire Columbia community, I send my deepest condolences to Davide’s family.”
A second stabbing victim, a 27-year-old man, was discovered about a dozen blocks to the south of the location where Giri was attacked, police said. The 27-year-old was taken to the same hospital and was in stable condition Friday, police said. Police did not release the second victim’s name.
A 25-year-old man who fit the description that had been provided to police of the suspect in the two stabbings was arrested in Central Park several blocks from the location of the second stabbing while menacing a third man with a knife, police said. Charges against the suspect were pending Friday. His name was not immediately released.
Giri came to Columbia after studying at universities in Turin, Italy, and Chicago, according to his Columbia website.
The Italian foreign ministry said that both Giri and the surviving stabbing victim were Italian citizens. The ministry said in a statement that it was offering assistance to the wounded man and to Giri’s family. The ministry did not indicate that Giri and the other man knew each other.
The Italian news agency ANSA said Giri was from the northwestern Piedmont city of Alba, and the local paper Gazzetta di Alba said he was an active volunteer for the Santa Margherita parish.
