Enough With the Marauding Teenagers!
A couple of months ago as we were walking East on Greene Avenue between Waverly and Washington we noticed in our peripheral vision someone approaching fast from behind. When we spun around, it was a teenage boy, probably about 15 years old, who had crept up and was hovering inches from the back of our…
A couple of months ago as we were walking East on Greene Avenue between Waverly and Washington we noticed in our peripheral vision someone approaching fast from behind. When we spun around, it was a teenage boy, probably about 15 years old, who had crept up and was hovering inches from the back of our head mocking us provocatively to the clear delight of his jeering friends. Ever risk-averse, we quickly walked out into the middle of the street and starting dialing on our cell phone. With a few shouts, the pack continued down the block. We jogged back to a police car we had noticed parked back on Vanderbilt, told the cops what had happened and went home. The next day we heard that a woman had been mugged half an hour later a few blocks from there by a bunch of teenagers. We’ve heard of several similar instances in the area in recent weeks. And it’s not just Clinton Hill. A post on Brooklynian describes how a trio of teenage girls (19, 17 and 12) mugged five different people in Prospect Heights on Saturday night (and how only one of them decided to press charges) and an email we received yesterday told of a violent mugging of a twenty-something male by a group of boys at around 8:15 Monday night at Dekalb and South Oxford Street in Fort Greene (above). What can the community do to combat this activity? Obviously greater police presence would help, but given the paltry resources the NYPD devotes to this part of town, it’s going to take a lot of vigilance on the part of residents in terms of reporting even small incidents of harassment and pressing charges. And everyone should be aware that a lot of these muggings are happening during daylight hours, often between the end of school and dinner time, so it’s a good idea to minimize iPod and cell phone usage during those times. Please use this comment thread to document other similar incidents that you know about in recent months as well as to suggest ways to address the problem.
Just a bit of the old ultraviolence. Real horrorshow!
@ at least 11:18 has a job daveinbedstuy
not posting on bs all day like you douchebag
Is “Maruading Teenagers” the new code word? I remember a few short years ago the term “Wilding” was used frequently by the press to describe a group (defined by 2 or more) young blackmen gathered together on a street corner. A few over exagerrated incidents made for good headlines and plunged this city into a era of fear that brouht Guiliani to power. The atmosphere was so poisonous that four incident young men playing in a park across the street from where they lived was sent to jail for rape while supposedly “wilding” in central park. Those of us without selective memory know the hysteria that produced that horrible injustice. I am not downplaying what happened to brownstoner and others. I also have been a vistim of crime. I too, believe that if you are a menace to society and have problems functioning around people that you should be removed by your peers. But, I also believe that once the community recognizes that a problem is developing we should meet, plan, and discuss ways of working with law enforcement to help reduce (not stop) crime in our community. The last thing we should be doing as crime victims is 1) not reporting the crime and 2) banging the drum of fear. Fort Greene is surrounded on all four corners by high schools where kids are together in groups. Let’s first see them as kids and not “Marauding Teenagers” With people on this site praising Bernard Geotz and the like, I am afraid that we will drift back into a land that time forgot. Do we really wanna give birth to another Al Sharpton, or Rudy Guiliani? We are a better society now, and we can deal with this emerging problem in a different way.
11:19 is another idiot that blames the economy. You mean two years ago these thugs would have been employed and not felt the need to mug and beat up people?
Nice to see that this thread has not been reduced to classist/racist commentary, but seems to be quite a productive discussion. I’d like to make a point, however: In the mean streets of New York, gentrified or otherwise, would you put a blindfold on walking down the street? Of course not, because sight is a primary sense, especially when you need to actively analyze what is going on around you… then why would you give away the primary sense of hearing sound to process what is happening on the street around you (by listening to an ipod)… as my Mom would say, “sometimes common sense is not that common”.
Noklissa,
I’m sorry but people who attribute crimes to some kind of class rage / revenge by the poor for injustice don’t understand crime or the poor.
Poor peoples’ favorite victims are other poor people. It’s just that the relatively rarer crimes against the affluent (who have access to the media, high-profile blogs, etc.) get more attention.
11:18….bad ghetto impression…get back to your order entry job now
also – don’t carry iPods. I have a Cowon D2 media player – expandable, has a radio, and doesn’t require iTunes! and is tiny.
10:54 Yes.