Shattering a Fragile Dream

Morningside Park is a kind of uneasy border between two worlds in northern & Manhattan. On the highlands to the west, atop Morningside Heights, are Columbia University, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and graying, middle-class residential neighborhoods. In the valley to the east stretches Harlem. Separating them are the steep green slopes of the park, a wooded no- man's-land that even policemen hesitate to enter. It was on the eastern edge of the park one rainy night last month that Edmund Perry, 17, was shot to death during an alleged attack on a young policeman. The younger of two sons of a black working-class Harlem family, Perry had just graduated with honors from exclusive, mostly white Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, which he attended on a scholarship, and was set to enter Stanford University in the fall.

Edmund Perry was fatally wounded by a white New York police officer, Lee Van Houten, 24, whose two-year record on the force was unblemished. Last week amid a storm of community outrage and accusations of police misconduct and racism, a Manhattan grand jury cleared Van Houten of any wrongdoing. The panel also charged Perry's older brother, Jonah, 19, a second-year engineering student at Cornell University, with assault and attempted robbery in the scuffle with Van Houten that resulted in Edmund's death. Neither Edmund nor Jonah, who had also gone to a tony prep school (Westminster in Simsbury, Conn.), had ever been in trouble with the law. Those who defended the innocence of the Perry brothers said there seemed no motivation for such an uncharacteristic and violent act.

That issue and countless other questions may never be answered to anyone's satisfaction. But according to police, 23 witnesses have come forward to support Van Houten's version of events. A plainclothes policeman, Van Houten was patrolling the perimeter of the park that night, hoping to catch some of the thieves who had been breaking into the cars of doctors from nearby St. Luke's hospital. As Van Houten recounts it, he approached the hospital on the dark side of the street and was attacked from behind by Edmund Perry and an accomplice, who threw him to the ground and beat him nearly unconscious. As his assailants rifled his pockets shouting "Give it up!" (a demand for his money), Van Houten pulled his service revolver and fired three shots. One of them struck Edmund Perry in the abdomen. The second assailant, whom Van Houten never clearly saw, fled when Edmund fell.

In the past the Perry family seemed to have done everything right. Edmund, ^ whose hard-working mother Veronica taught in a local Headstart program and served on the community school board, had wanted to become a doctor, but was also considering a career in politics. He had planned to spend the summer working at a Wall Street investment house before heading for Stanford. To teachers, neighbors and friends of the family, the Perry brothers stood as prime examples of what the black community's youth could achieve. "Everybody looked up to Jonah and Edmund," Sheila Wright, a neighbor, told the New York Times. "They were models for the other kids." Said a former teacher at Edmund's funeral: "Edmund's life was a symbol of success to all those who had encouraged, supported, coached and applauded as he began his long climb up the rough side of the mountain."