A man was fatally stabbed at the former Gun Hill apartments on Wednesday morning, a complex near Cornell’s campus that houses many University students.
The incident took place at around 10:55 a.m., west of West Campus on Lake Street, and a male suspect remains at large.
Police have not released any details on the victim. The Ithaca Times reported that the victim was a building employee, who was taken to a local hospital. At around 3 p.m., Mayor Svante Myrick ’09 tweeted that the victim had died from injuries sustained.
On the scene of a fatal stabbing at 210 Lake street.
IPD is working with state police, Cornell Police to find the suspect. Be on the lookout for a young man in a white t and jeans. Likely muddy.
Avoid travelling through the area if possible.
Will release more when I can
— Svante Thee Mayor (@SvanteMyrick) July 17, 2019
Myrick also posted on Facebook that the suspect and the victim knew each other, and that they were both from outside of the immediate Ithaca area.
The only information on the suspect is that he is a 5’6” black male with a medium cut afro who was wearing a white tee-shirt, blue jeans and tan sneakers, a Cornell police release said. No other identifying features have been stated. He fled from the scene, and is considered “armed and dangerous.”
Cornell issued an alert to its students on Wednesday morning via phone, email and text, to stay away from the area and to call 911 immediately if they see the suspect. Police restricted access to Lake Street until around 4 p.m.
Ithaca Police, the Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office, New York State Police and Cornell Police are on the scene helping with the search, the release stated. A spokesperson for CUPD said they did not yet have any updates on the alert.
The Gun Hill apartments were renamed Auden Ithaca after selling earlier this year, and are located west of Cornell on Lake Street.
Students who live in the apartments were prohibited from going in and out of their dorms by the police presence.
Apartment resident Bashir Ali was in the building when the incident occurred, and told The Sun via Facebook message at around 2 p.m. that tenants were “stuck in [his] apartment” under advice from CUPD.
Other tenants, such as Alex Vompe, were waiting out the search elsewhere on campus and checking social media for updates. Police closed off the area, and were encouraging residents to stay in their dorms or away from the location.
Vompe said that he had not received any communication from the building, and that this wasn’t the first source of difficulty with the complex this summer.
The apartments sold to a new holder in May, and are currently under renovation, with a lot of new construction, Vompe told The Sun via text.
“Construction workers have been entering apartments unannounced and working on large-scale repairs,” Vompe said.
He said this compromised tenants’ belongings and was “making the apartments unlivable.”
With today’s events, Vompe said that he was even more concerned about the security of the complex.
“The situation already felt very unstable,” he said. “Now it feels fully chaotic.”
The old website for Gun Hill said the location is designed to create a “residential college atmosphere” with a similar setup to on-campus dorms. A designated shuttle previously took residents between the apartments and campus.