Moms Battle "Hooligans" in Carroll Park

Here's an interesting story from Carroll Park between Smith and Court Streets that is making the rounds in the form of an email from a local mom about "an increasingly unruly element" making the park "unsafe for families" even during the day. It's a very long post, and if you don't have attention span for it, here's the thumbnail: This all has to do with teenagers snapping wet t-shirts near some moms and kids. The teens didn't enjoy being told to stop. Many recriminations ensued. Threats were uttered by the kids to the adults. The police were called--and to us this is the most interesting part--didn't respond to what could have become a lousy incident in anything resembling a timely fashion. The kids kept up the harassment. They threw things at the adults. And, when the cops finally showed they are said to have been disinterested if not dismissive.

Meantime, the mom in question snapped a cell phone pic of one of the teens, but it didn't make the rounds with the email. Here's the Carroll Gardens mom's account in full:

I wanted to relate to you something that occurred at Carroll Park yesterday afternoon, around 6:40 p.m. I am doing so to make a few points: an increasingly unruly element has made Carroll Park unsafe for families even during many daylight hours; there is little the police can or will do about it, perhaps because of manpower shortages or the volume of crime in the precinct; it is up to those who use the park to try to bring both some focus and some better order there by reporting incidents through the 911 system when they happen, by being more proactive when trouble is brewing and by dealing with that trouble more as a community. I know it is very difficult to handle unruly teenagers while also protecting your young children. But an ad-hoc group of several parents working together could likely keep the peace.

I don't have much time to write this so this is only a rough sketch of what happened. Suffice it to say, this is not the first time something like this has occurred at Carroll Park, but it is the most egregious example of hooliganism I've seen so far. And in my mind it is another example of the danger of not fixing "broken windows" when they present themselves.

Three teenage boys were slapping each other with wet shirts near a woman I know and her 3.5 year old son. She asked them to be careful as they were getting very close to both her son and mine. This emboldened them and they moved even closer, nearly hitting one of the children with one of their shirts as they slapped
them in our direction. When I interceded they responded that they were going to beat me down and break my nose.

I told them they needed to back off and be more respectful of others in the park. We moved away, entering the small-children area by the swings. After a minute or two, the three teenagers pursued us and started snapping their wet shirts over the fence, spraying our children with the water and threatening me. This went on for awhile. Finally I took one of their shirts, threw it in the street and called the police. I was assured they were on their way, and to wait for them to arrive.

They, of course, were not. We waited as the teenagers continued a hit and run tactic with their shirts and their threats. I left my child with my friend and her son, and went toward them as they snapped their shirts at my face, taking a quick snap with my camera phone.

A park worker showed up to take the garbage out as the teenagers regrouped and I asked what could be done. He said that he could tell the teenagers to leave the park but that was about it. He walked over to the group and told them to get out of the park. I thought this was good, although I'd have preferred for the police to run them through the station. I waited for the police to arrive.

The teenagers re-appeared after the park worker moved the garbage and attacked again. This time they were also angry and suspicious about the photo I took. They appeared to be thinking of trying to steal my phone and destroy what they saw as "the evidence." I waited for the police.

The teenagers disappeared behind the building for a moment. Then, commando style, they appeared again, slinging small rocks and what appeared to be hard candy or large gum-balls of some sort. Several nearly hit my son and one struck me in the eye.

With no police there and none likely to arrive, we finally decided to make a break for it. As we attempted to leave, they pelted us with water balloons. By this point, probably 40 minutes had elapsed from when I called the first incident into 911. I called the police one last time (the third time by now).

We were going to walk through this group of teenagers to get out of the park, hopefully without our children being hurt. The teenagers had again disappeared behind the park building. Maybe this time they would use larger rocks? Maybe this time, they would hit my young son. I was no longer concerned about the moral or legal ramifications of breaking all of their fingers and toes.

I hung up with 911 and we started walking out of the park. Another parent in the park noticed two police officers standing toward the middle of the park, toward Carroll Street. We reversed course and headed toward them. I motioned for them to walk toward me. They didn't budge, offended that I actually wanted them to, well, walk, and motioned for me to walk over to them.

I yelled to them that it had been over half an hour since I'd called and that it wouldn't kill them to meet me half-way. I attempted to explain the situation and urged them to go toward the building where the teenagers might still be. They didn't seem too interested, perhaps because they didn't understand that the teenagers might still be in the park. After a good minute or two, they began to slowly meander over to the park building. I said that the teenagers would just run away if they saw the police coming, but the police didn't care much about this. And I don't fault them for this really. Why should they care? They know that nothing can be done with a juvenile in such a situation. Even if they grabbed one of them and took them into the station, the teenagers would just be held there until their parents arrived. And who wants to do the paperwork?

The upshot of this is that the police in our precinct obviously have more pressing concerns than to deal with relatively minor incidents like what happened at Carroll Park yesterday. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be made aware of them, or that such activity should go unchecked. If these incidents are not nipped in the bud -- the threats and intimidation of parents (most often women with young children), the physical altercations, the drug dealing and pot smoking by a very non-mellow outfit camped by the sand courts -- then things can, and likely will, escalate into something more serious.

As James Wilson and George Kelling wrote in their seminal work on community policing, "one broken window becomes many."

"The citizen who fears the ill-smelling drunk, the rowdy teenager, or the importuning beggar is not merely expressing his distaste for unseemly behavior; he is also giving voice to a bit of folk wisdom that happens to be a correct generalization -- namely, that serious street crime flourishes in areas in which disorderly behavior goes unchecked."

Marauding groups of t-shirt snapping teens menacing moms and their kids in Carroll Park and threating to break noses and cops that take 40 minutes to show up. Fun.