Police investigate fatal stabbing in Poughkeepsie public park frequented by the city's homeless
The stabbing happened just before 9 p.m. Wednesday at Pershing Park, which has developed a reputation.
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Poughkeepsie police are looking into a fatal stabbing at a city park that has become a gathering place for many of the city's homeless.
The homicide happened in the midst of the department's campaign to restore quality of life in downtown neighborhoods, while also encouraging the homeless to seek professional help.
Detectives are still trying to positively identify the middle-aged man who was stabbed to death, as well as a person of interest they are looking for.
The stabbing happened just before 9 p.m. Wednesday at Pershing Park, which has developed a reputation.
"There needles and everything else all over the park," said neighbor Regina Cummings, as she passed by the park with a load of groceries, "so the kids can't play."
Cummings was not surprised to learn of Wednesday night's stabbing.
She said that people often sleep in the park, fight and openly use drugs.
Cummings said the park has been full of illegal activity, shopping carts and tents since early summer when the city began cracking down on hangout spots in downtown, just a few blocks from the park.
"Why do we have to visualize and be subject [to this]?," she said, referencing a nearby apparent drug addict before turning her attention to a child passing by. "Look at this little baby right here walking past right now and this is what he gets to see. Seriously? No. Not cool."
Residents told News 12 police were at the park for much of the morning investigating and keeping the park clear, only for the regulars to return with their shopping carts once police left the scene.
"They tend to move as groups," Police Chief Richard Wilson said of the local homeless population.
He said, in addition to a social worker who is embedded with the department, he is constantly seeking more mental health professionals to team up with his officers.
He said those teams have been forming relationships with homeless people and standing by for whenever they are ready to accept help from a local public services agency.
It is a long-term strategy that many residents said they support, though they are growing impatient.
"Just because we get declinations over and over and over, we still reach out to people," Chief Wilson said, "because we don't know about that one time when they're either down on their luck or change their mind and really want to take the first step."
Anyone with information about Wednesday night's homicide are asked to call the Poughkeepsie police tip hotline at 845-451-7577.
