<p>the fact of race was mentioned because moments before the incident happened, the stabber was kicked out of a nearby frat party for shouting racial slurs. </p>
<p>from cornelldailysun.com:</p>
<p>"According to sources familiar with the incident, Poffenbarger and an unidentified female were walking in the vicinity of Baker Tower, on the corner of University and West, after Poffenbarger was reportedly kicked out of a West Campus fraternity party for belligerent behavior and use of racial slurs.</p>
<p>University officials said Poffenbarger continued using the epithets after leaving the fraternity and was overheard by a nearby group of three black Union College students, who then confronted Poffenbarger. A verbal altercation escalated, and Poffenbarger allegedly stabbed one of the students."</p>
<p>what did he stab the guy with? anyways race is always reported in crimes, its no big detail to get all wrapped up in. news usually list mike smith,43 shot by george jones,34.-it is known these people are white. when it is not just white invovlement, the news list the race of the people invovled. thats the reason why they mentioned race. even if the gut was shouting racial slurs, thier races would be listed anyways.</p>
<p>what's going to happen to him? is he expelled or if he is did u know that colleges can't release why he was expelled. i learned this from a news report about a student rapist who was expelled from ohio state, then he went to some school in nyc and they didn't know of his rape charge. Does cornell have like a legal council(of students and administators)? like they will review this case and make a decision on punishment on this guy separate from the criminal charges?</p>
<p>I think you're reading too much into the press release if you're hung up on the mention of race. They always mention race in news reports regarding violent occurences. It's normal. Is it ideal? That's a better question. Is Cornell trying to propagate some ultra-liberal, we-love-blacks-here attitude by including race in the press release? I would vote no.</p>
<p>i agree with abike11 and bongo boy about the inclusion of race in the letter being appropriate. as i said above, I missed the word caucasian, and just throught they threw the "african american" description in there randomly. </p>
<p>and yes, you're right bongoboy, it's normal; but perhaps not ideal is the real issue. it's on the level of saying "the blonde victim was stabbed by the pimpled assailant" In this particular case, with a few more details given, it seems like it would be relevant information, but in general i think it's stupid to make race such a big issue in individual, non-racist crimes (as I said, not necessarily like in this case, just in general)</p>
<p>Yeah, I agree with that Sparticus.</p>
<p>Eh, it's not exactly what it seems. From what I hear, the victim seriously offended a brother in sigma pi with a racist remark, and one of the other brothers got ****ed and stabbed him or something. It's pretty messed up, but was more of a skirmish that got out of hand than a hate crime.</p>
<p>so we should believe your hearsay?</p>
<p>What is interesting about what you say AJKates is that Sigma Phi was founded at Union college. Isn't that where the boy who was stabbed was from? Was he a visiting brother??
<a href="http://sws2.sas.cornell.edu/dos/FSA/facts/sigmaphi/home.html%5B/url%5D">http://sws2.sas.cornell.edu/dos/FSA/facts/sigmaphi/home.html</a></p>
<p>Something I found after a google search
I guessthe police will continue to investigate since there are so many different stories out there</p>
<p>Sigma Phi was founded at union college, but Sigma Pi is not the same thing...I seriously doubt he was a visiting brother; I think I'd know since I'm at Sigma Phi every day.</p>
<p>is this incident big in ithaca news? i don't think it will go national- these incidents happen across all college campuses.</p>
<p>The story was the front page, big headline in The Ithaca Journal.</p>
<p>link, please?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage%5B/url%5D">http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage</a>
<a href="http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060221/NEWS01/602210330/1002%5B/url%5D">http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060221/NEWS01/602210330/1002</a></p>
<p>has the heat died down at cornell? or was there any heat in the first place?</p>
<p>Living in a city (well, 15 mins from it) typically ranked in the top 5 for murder-rate, I can safely say that if you don't go looking for trouble you aren't going to get it. Honestly, if you are just smart about things, you can be perfectly safe on any college campus (JHU, for instance, is a couple of blocks from some sketchy areas, yet I'd feel perfectly comfortable walking around the campus).</p>
<p>It is kind of dissappointing that it was a student (and not an outsider) who did the stabbing, but **** happens. People are crazy. This won't do anything to hurt Cornell's image though, in my opinion.</p>
<p>AJKates, the person who stabbed the victim was the one who offended a brother.</p>
<p>Wow, I just found out that kid was in my stats section. The girl was like, "Can I work with you, my partner's in jail." He was a pretty creepy kid. He said he transferred from a community college in Maryland.</p>