Pratt Community Alerted to Rise in Violent Muggings
Last Friday Pratt Institute brass sent out an email to students and faculty warning them of a reported increase in violent activity near the Clinton Hill campus. The email said, in part, the following: The NYPD 88 Precinct has reported an increase in robberies within its confines. The robberies are reported to be committed by…
Last Friday Pratt Institute brass sent out an email to students and faculty warning them of a reported increase in violent activity near the Clinton Hill campus. The email said, in part, the following:
The NYPD 88 Precinct has reported an increase in robberies within its confines. The robberies are reported to be committed by a group of black males and females approximately 15-16 years of age. It has been reported that the group runs up to the victim, assaults them by kicking, punching, and scratching; then taking anything of value. These occurrences have happened during various times of the day. All students and Pratt community members are recommended to travel in pairs or groups. If you must travel alone consider using a car service. Avoid traveling late at night.
Repeated queries to the 88th Precinct for more information on the rash of robberies yielded no answers, but the precinct’s published report on crime for the 28 days that ended last Sunday shows there were 26 robberies committed during the period, a 37 percent increase from the 19 committed during the same weeks last year. Pratt isn’t the only neighborhood entity that’s been showing concern about safety in the area lately. Clinton Hill Blog has been chronicling appearances of a car in the neighborhood called the “Clinton-Washington Neighborhood Patrol,” a security measure undertaken by the Clinton Hill Co-ops. A couple months ago the Daily News reported that there’s been a big jump in the number of robberies and car thefts in Clinton Hill so far this year.
Clinton-Washington Neighborhood Patrol [Clinton Hill Blog]
Double-Digit Increase in Clinton Hill Crime Rate [Brownstoner]
Photo by PhillyBlunt.
The brazen violence in an everyday situation is what rattles me most. How could you feel safe – what if you were with your child, your elderly parent..
The pyscho/social issues with alot of these kids are beyond our realm of comprehension. Couple this with drugs, a lack of an educational foundation and no direction whatsoever. Obama’s talk and approach is the right direction. For the lowest class black youth, there has to be a starting point, a role model, someone to talk straight and avoid the multitude of excuses that may have elements of truth but lead nowhere… For middle and upper class blacks it must be gratifying to know that your children will likely see a Black President who got there because of his grace, style and unique ability to bring people together.
CanarsieGirl – It may be true that petty crimes are just that in the face of corruption on the scale of Enron, but petty crimes can lead to senseless killings. Remember Nicole DuFresne? One of the accomplices in her murder claimed she wanted to start a fight with DuFresne and her friends because they were laughing and having a good time… not sure how a block club could help with that…
One thing that we have lost sight on in this discussion is that crime is crime, poor people robbing from people with more money is still a crime. I don’t care who moved into who’s neighborhood, crime is crime. That’s what jails are for. Lock the kids up. They aren’t running away with 50cent candy bars they are committing
violent crimes!!!!
The real reason that people commit crimes is for survival and unfortunately with the economy being what it is everyone needs to watch their backs. The crimes that are being committed in these Brooklyn neighborhoods are small petty crimes unlike the white collar crimes like ENRON. So PLEASEEE….
As long as we live in a society that is full of greedy, self-involved, heartless, coniving, faithless people crime will continue. It will only stop when we get involved in our communities and make a difference. Instead of getting on this message board and talking about the negative things that are “supposedly” going on in your neighborhoods, why not start a block club or something. DAMN
Good post, 9:52.
I graduated from Columbia in Manhattan where I developed street smarts. No problems there.
Then my friends and I went up to Cambridge for graduate school.
And guess what? All of us got mugged, because we didn’t know how to read the street — or people. (In Boston, there are lots of poor Irish kids out to roll students.)
Gonna live in the city? Be smart. And have a good time while being so.
I was recently sitting on an L-train, approaching Montrose station, watching a woman carefully arrange her hair and jacket so her ipod headphones were completely hidden. It was a very careful production that she’d clearly carefully worked out before.
I thought about telling her that if she’s that stressed out about getting mugged she might be better off without the distraction of music to begin with. I’m trying to learn to mind my own business, though.
I’ve nearly been mugged twice in Brooklyn. Both times I saw it coming — a group of teen boys seemed to be too interested in me; the street was deserted. I was trying to decide what to do when I realized they had surrounded me (once) or come running silently across the street towards me (the other time) — and both times I made a huge stink and started yelling, once at them, once for help. Both times they wound up leaving me alone.
There is no such thing as a safe neighborhood. It has nothing to do with Clinton Hill or no Clinton Hill, I know people who’ve been stabbed in Park Slope, held up at gun point on the Upper West Side.
Don’t walk around at night with headphones in, pay attention to what is happening around you, don’t be afraid scream. The reason that longtime residents of Clinton Hill aren’t getting mugged as often is students is because they’re streetwise.
I hope that the Clinton Hill Co-op residents don’t imagine that a car-bound neighborhood patrol is going to do eff-all besides run over bicyclists while they’re scanning the sidewalk for muggers.
LP – Thanks for your insightful response. I agree with both of your responses except for on minor point: you state that the first thing to do is tear down the projects, but I’m sure you’d agree that the real first thing to do is come up with a plan for where you’re going to put people. The problem with that is nobody wants displaced project housing residents in their neighborhood, and many project housing residents don’t want to be displaced from their community (as dysfunctional as it may be).
Sounds like your studies are interesting – hope you can make a difference some day… good luck.
where would the tenants go?