Strangulation of Sarah Fox,
Runner In Inwood Hill Park,
Leads to Safety Proposals.

By Henry J. Stern
May 26, 2004

Today we read the heart-rending news that a young woman, a drama student at Juilliard living in the Inwood section of upper Manhattan, was attacked and strangled as she went for an afternoon run in Inwood Hill Park. The tragedy had particular resonance for me, both because I grew up on Post Avenue in Inwood and because I worked for sixteen years in parks.
 
Inwood Hill Park is a 196-acre natural wilderness in the northwest corner of Manhattan Island. Apart from the North Woods of Central Park, it is the last remaining wilderness in Manhattan. Most New Yorkers are unaware of its existence, and see it only as they drive by on the Moses-built Henry Hudson Parkway. The area originally consisted of large estates that were acquired by the city between 1916 and 1925, after which the manor houses were demolished. It is a hilly area overlooking the Hudson and Harlem Rivers, traversed by narrow park roads. Its playgrounds, ballfields and tennis courts get substantial use, but its ravines and woodlands are relatively empty, except for runners from the neighborhood.
 
Are we to tell New Yorkers that they cannot run in parks, other than Central Park, or that they cannot run alone? Actually, it is safer if people, particularly young women, run in pairs, which they should if they can. Neither Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe nor I can remember a previous murder in Inwood Hill Park — certainly not the killing of a clearly innocent victim. By that I mean that if a drug dealer stabs a colleague, it is murder, but not one that should frighten the public out of using the park.

Experience indicates that the killer is likely to be someone who has committed sex crimes in the past, which should assist the detectives investigating the case. I am certain that Commissioner Kelly, intent on solving this awful crime, will blanket the area with investigators. But even if the killer is caught and punished, that will not bring Sarah Fox back to life, or stop the pain of her grieving family and friends.
 
The circumstances of this case are particularly distressing. Can a young woman come to New York City to study at one of its famous institutions, the Juilliard School, and exercise in its parks without fear?  Ms. Fox did run alone, but she had every right to expect safety, particularly at the daylight hour (5 p.m.) at which she left her apartment on nearby Isham Street. Yet a complete police patrol of such a large and lightly used area would be difficult to maintain. How then can New Yorkers be protected when they run in their parks?
 
One way is by closer police surveillance of the entrances to the park. That would be helpful, but raises issues of profiling as police make instant judgments of who is possibly a sexual predator. Another helpful measure would be to place more public alarm boxes in the park, so that threatened park users would have a greater chance to get assistance.

It should be possible to have runners wear a personal alarm, a small machine that, if activated, will let out a blood-curdling sound, and at the same time activate a link to 911, and possibly the nearest police precinct. With modern advances in technology, this suggestion appears practical. People could own these alarms, or rent or borrow them at park entrances.
 
Another way to make parks safer would be to double the size of the Parks Enforcement Patrol (PEP). This force, established 25 years ago and once close to 200 officers, has been whittled down over the years to less than half that number. Restoring PEP to its original strength would provide substantial additional protection. PEPs earn about half the salaries of police officers, and, after training, are fully familiar with park issues. Because they are effective, they have been hired, under contract with Parks & Recreation, by the Battery Park City Authority and the Hudson River Park Trust.

The homicide rate in New York City began to fall in the latter part of the Dinkins administration, when Commissioner Ray Kelly replaced Dr. Lee Brown, who was subsequently elected mayor of Houston. It was reduced by over 60% under Mayor Giuliani and his three police commissioners (Bratton, Safir and Kerik), and the decline has continued under Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly redux. We are said to be the safest large city in America. Even here, however, a young woman running alone in a desolate park is vulnerable to violence. Nonetheless, she and others like her deserve a reasonable level of protection.
 
The murder of Sarah Fox should arouse enormous public indignation because of the savagery of the crime, the youth and innocence of the victim, and the public place in which she was so cruelly assaulted. Statistics provide little consolation when it is your daughter or friend that has been brutally attacked and murdered. Our hope is that the justified uproar over this egregious case will lead to permanent measures to improve safety in Inwood Hill Park and throughout the city. Preventing future tragedies would be an appropriate way to honor the memory of Sarah Fox.