I spoke to several people who spend a significant time in the park and from the information I have been able to gather, the tension between two groups of teens has been mounting for almost two years now.
According to what I have been told, each group includes about 15 teens that congregate around Smith Street and Carroll Park on a regular basis after school lets out at 3 PM. One group seems to be coming from Hoyt Street, while the other comes down Court Street from the direction of the Place blocks.
The encounters mostly involved a lot of gesturing and posturing, but recently some have almost come to blows. Towards the end of last school year, a fight on President Street and Carroll Park between the rivals resulted in someone calling the police. Two police cars responded and I personally witnessed two kids being led away in handcuffs by officers of the 76th Precinct.
One local resident who spends significant time in the park and witnessed Monday's attach, told me that the tension can be felt when the two groups meet. The resident told me that the stand-offs mostly involve the same kids, but don't always happen in the park. During the summer, the groups apparently had skirmishes in other parts of the neighborhood.
The 76th Precinct is continuing to investigate Monday afternoon's attack. They are also investigating who shot a gun several times near the park at Court Street at 7:50 Pm that same night. No word yet if the two have been linked or if this is indeed an escalation in the turf war.
In the meantime, there is a larger police presence around the park.
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8 comments:
I live across the street and have walked thru the park at least ten times since your first report on this matter. I have yet to see a SINGLE uniformed officer. Unless they are all deep undercover, it's clear the 76th IS NOT taking this matter seriously.
I urge you to call the following numbers to make sure our elected officials and the 7-6 knows how important this matter is to our community:
Councilman Brad Lander: 718-499-1090
Assemblywoman Millman: 718-246-4889
NYPD 76th Precinct: -718-834-3211
I was there at about 3:15 PM and saw two separate police cars drive around the park. One van, one regular police car.
But I do think that the 76th Precinct needs to have a presence IN the park as well. Apparently, a policeman was stationed there all of last week.
No idea, why they would not resume after Monday's event.
Not a single officer walked around or through the park today. They are not taking this serious as much as you want to believe they are.
When i was a teenager and we seen thugs like this around the park, they would get a beaten right back to Red Hook, what a shame this neighborhood has turned, keep drinking your lattes and eat your organic food
A few commenters on this site have pined for the days when the "neighborhood" would have taken care of these teenage gangs with the rough justice of the streets. Many lament that the community isn't as "connected" as it used to be and can't protect itself because we are all pansy yuppies and drink to many lattes.
Well, I propose that the community employ the power that many of them flexed to buy into Carroll Gardens, in the 1st Place (pun intended)- money.
The NYPD isn't going to put up a reward to get this shooter off the streets so why can't we as a community raise $10,000 to post a reward for information that leads to the arrest of those involved in the senseless shooting that could have resulted in a tragic death. It would be very easy to get 100 of us to pledge $100, or even 1000 to give $10. I'm not sure what channels this should go through, local government, NYPD, Kick Starter?
I'm positive a reward of that amount would get the teenage grapevine blabbing and would sow dissent and paranoia among these gangs that are using Carroll Park as a staging ground for their adolescent pissing contests. Post signs all around the park and I seriously doubt the shooter is going to be hanging around anymore. "No Snitching" probably would fall to greed and gossip alone might ferret out this knucklehead without a reward having to be disbursed at all. Anyone think this is a good plan? It can't hurt can it?
These little thugs can't wait for you to "End stop and frisk now!". They obviously don't have much parenting and never have. It's always been the taxpayers job to hire "babysitting" for kids like this. Now you want us to vacate that post too? No. My parents safety, my wife's safety is way too important to me to wash off an effective method for the sake of not offending someone. Am I allowed to be offended?
They don't skirmish in the park in the summer likely because we are lucky enough to have Kathleen there. She makes her presence known and the kids know she will call the police at the first sign of trouble. We just need to pressure the 76th to have someone patrol the park after school hours and it will have the same effect.
People need to remember that Carroll Gardens is not a gated community. We live in NYC, you need to take the good with the bad. Just because you paid $2million for your apartment doesn't make this Greenwich.
Lets see the NYPD lowers crime from 2000 homicides a year to around 300 (this year); then the public attacks the police, and judges and the public tie the hands of said police and make them civilly liable. Then the public nominates for Mayor a guy who attacks all the gains made in this city over the lat 3 decades and commits to further attacking the police.
Now there is a shooting and many of the same public are now complaining that the police arent doing enough. Well guess what dummies - this is the future (and the past).
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