Columbia University graduate student killed overnight in stabbing near campus

A Columbia University student is dead and another person injured following a pair of unprovoked stabbings Thursday night near the Ivy League's uptown Manhattan campus.

Thirty-year-old Davide Giri, a graduate engineering student, was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai-Saint Luke's Hospital after being stabbed in the stomach near the corner of West 123rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue shortly before 11 p.m.

"I write with great sorrow to share the tragic news that Davide Giri, a graduate student at the School of Engineering and Applied Science, was killed in a violent attack near campus on Thursday night," wrote university President Lee Bollinger in an email to students. "This news is both unspeakably sad and deeply shocking, as it took place only steps from our campus."

Giri was a doctoral candidate in computer science at the university.

Police say they discovered a second man, a 27-year-old tourist, with torso stab wounds at West 110th Street. He was taken to the same hospital and stabilized. 

A 25-year-old suspect was soon arrested inside Central Park in connection to the stabbing rampage, according to the police. The suspect was reportedly threatening yet another victim when he was found and taken into custody. The third person was unharmed. 

The suspect, an African-American man who has not yet been charged, is reportedly a member of the Every Body Killer gang – an offshoot of the Bloods – and has 11 prior arrests on his record, for robberies, assaults, and other alleged crimes. In 2015, he was convicted of gang assault and served two years of a four-year sentence.

The fatal assault took place just steps away from Morningside Park, where 18-year-old Barnard student Tessa Majors was stabbed to death two years ago.