Popular Columbia student battled attackers before tragic car hit Options

[ttocs]

Damn, this is really sad.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2...ed_attacke.html

BY VERONIKA BELENKAYA, JONATHAN LEMIRE and ADAM NICHOLS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Saturday, April 5th 2008, 3:33 PM

A Columbia University graduate student put up a fierce struggle with two muggers before he ran into traffic, where he was struck and killed by a car, cops said.

Minghui Yu's efforts to fight off the bandits was captured on surveillance video - which could help police track down the robbers who fled after the crash.

Yu, 24, was walking back to the Morningside Heights campus at 8:50 p.m. Friday when he was set upon on Broadway near W. 122nd St.

"He was coming home from having dinner at his girlfriend's," said Zhou Chang Yia, 27, Yu's roommate in a Columbia dorm on W. 121st St.

"I feel so sad. He was a math guy, a nice guy and a very popular kid."

Yu's girlfriend, student Chao Sun, 24, was too devastated to speak Saturday, said his friend Yan Duan, 24.

Yu, an only child from Shandong Province in China, was a movie buff and a painter who studied at the University of Science and Technology in China before moving to New York.

He had been studying statistics for two years at Columbia, friends said.

Yu was also the chairman of the university's Chinese Students and Scholars Association. "He was always helping new students from China," Yia said.

After he was struck, Yu was taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where he died from severe head trauma.

Cameras filmed his attackers bolting through the nearby Morningside Gardens housing development before doubling back. They were lost as they headed north on Broadway.

The driver who hit Yu stayed at the scene and has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

This post has been edited by ttocs: Apr 5 2008, 08:30 PM

[yhellothar]

Multiculturalism.

[Ben]

The muggers was 13 and 15 in the updated version.. Hope they catch those punks!

[thatsfascinating]

Oh wow, I was looking forward to making fun of this guy until I found out he was intelligent. I find it strange people are shortsighted enough to blame the two muggers (13! and 15!). Come on now. Surely you have to blame the inherently unstable social structure that is getting worse every year.