On the evening of Sept. 11, a traffic stop on Main Street in the city of Poughkeepsie spilled into Vassar’s campus when the car’s operator led police on a chase to Terrace Lane, according to a Sept. 17th memo from the New York State Police.
According to the memo, Daquan Jahan Killian, 36, of Poughkeepsie, was driving a 2012 Toyota Highlander when New York State Police, in conjunction with Poughkeepsie and Dutchess County Police, initiated a traffic stop for violations of vehicle and traffic law. Upon arriving at Terrace Lane, Killian, as well as their passenger, an unnamed sixteen-year-old, fled on foot and were apprehended in the nearby area without incident, the memo read.
Carrie Lewis ’26 was walking with a friend at around 6:40 p.m. near the Manchester Gate area when they paused to observe a family of deer. In a written correspondence, Lewis recalled, “Suddenly, the deer got very nervous and started to run away, causing us to move closer to the edge of the road, but not fully off it, and we were planning to start walking up toward the [Terrace Apartments (TAs)] . But then, we heard this really loud scraping noise coming from the Manchester Gate entrance, alerting us to a blue SUV that was barreling down the road right at us.”
“Immediately after this occurred, another car passed us, a smaller gray one that also came speeding towards us, and followed the blue car that had gone up to the TAs,” she said. Lewis and her friend safely avoided the vehicles, and upon hearing police sirens, returned to her dormitory. Police investigators later confirmed that the first car seen by Lewis was Killian’s Toyota, and that the second car was likely an undercover police car.
The Miscellany News spoke with Anna Kozloski ’25 [Disclaimer: Kozloski is a columnist for The Miscellany News] about her encounter with a suspect. “It was like around 6:40 and I was exiting out the lower entrance door of my TA,” Kozloski began. “I turned left onto the gravel path towards the TA bridge, I heard someone screaming at me behind me, and then I turned around and I took my headphones off, obviously, and then I realized it was a man with a gun who was screaming at me to get the f— back inside,” she continued. Kozloski explained that she slowly retreated into her residence and alerted two of her housemates, Tianyu Xiong ’25 and Liam Hilton ’25.
The person seen by Kozloski, however, is not confirmed to be a suspect. In a follow-up meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 17, Associate Dean of the College for Residential and Wellness Luis Inoa told Kozloski that the man she encountered was likely a plainclothes police officer, given the time at which she filed her report. In a written correspondence to The Misc, Kozloski wrote: “This was not at all clear to me at the time because he was not wearing a uniform and never announced to me that he was with the police.”
The Misc also spoke with Xiong about his actions following Kozloski’s warning. “I remember basically saying, ‘Okay, so we should stay on the upper level of the house and probably away from the windows.’” As they waited, Kozloski called Vassar’s Campus Response Center (CRC), and the respondent said the office had already been notified of the ongoing situation.
Director of Campus Safety Arlene Sabo responded to a request for further information on the timeline of the events that unfolded. In an email correspondence, Sabo wrote, “Campus Safety was alerted to the police activity on campus at around 6:45 p.m. and immediately dispatched officers to the area. Calls from both the local police (Town of Poughkeepsie Police who were called to assist the New York State Police) and on campus witnesses came within seconds of each other.” Students were officially notified of police activity in the area via a phone call and email blast sent at 7:34 p.m.
Describing the conclusion of the vehicular chase, Sabo wrote, “A specific fact that might be helpful for people to know is that the driver of the car was caught immediately and it wasn’t until a subsequent search of the car that a gun was found.” She continued, “The second individual police were searching for was located by police a distance from campus around 7:50 p.m. Once confirmation of this was certain, a second alert was sent notifying the campus and a summary was then emailed to the campus after that.” The alert was officially lifted via email and text at 8:06 p.m., and the follow up email by Emergency Management Lieutenant Gary Hulbert was disseminated at 8:58 p.m.
Students expressed mixed feelings about the response from Campus Security, specifically regarding the timeline of notification between the events that unfolded.
“The most concerning part of this all was that at roughly 6:45 [p.m.], Anna was yelled at [by] a man with a gun, then it wasn’t [until] 7:34 [p.m.] when we heard anything from Vassar, and finally at 8:58 [p.m.], we received the email saying the man was in police custody,” Hilton wrote in a statement to the Miscellany News.
Kozloski commented, “Reflecting on it, like the most stressful aspect of that was the period after where we were just in our house locked in and we didn’t know what to do. And like, they also didn’t send an email until almost an hour after that had happened.” She added, “Me and my friends were kind of freaking out and just trying to text everyone who especially…lived in the TAs or in that area, like, ‘Look, this just happened. Like, please stay inside and pass this message on to anyone else that you think might be affected by this.’”
Lewis recounted calling CRC the subsequent day with follow-up questions. She was connected with local investigators at the police station for a further explanation. “We were concerned about the second car that was closely following the first, but the police officer told us not to worry and said that the second car was most likely an undercover cop car that was handling the situation. So Campus Security responded quickly to our efforts, but we did follow up the next day instead of during the action, so I’m not sure if it had been different if we had called earlier,” she wrote.
Investigation determined that Killian and their passenger were in illegal possession of a 9mm Glock model 43 handgun, the memo said.
Both subjects were charged with two felonies and two misdemeanors, including Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the 2nd degree, a class C felony. Killian was arraigned before the City of Poughkeepsie Court and remanded to the Dutchess County Jail without bail, and the sixteen-year-old was turned over to their guardian, the memo said.
On Thursday, Sept. 12, The Misc saw a police officer and two additional individuals with a canine unit in the brush-filled area below the TAs where the incident occurred the day prior. Regarding this search, Sabo wrote, “The day after the incident police did a cursory check of the area to look for a cell phone. There are no outstanding investigatory actions.”