Youth Fight Scares Off Cops
img not a bit related to the story, but via flickr
There was a massive youth street battle yesterday right by the Williamsburg Bridge street entrance, that ended with some bloodied faces and frightened cops. A reader wrote in and said that while sitting at a traffic light just outside Ortis funeral home, they saw a bunch of kids (12-15) acting rowdy and yelling, while a funeral was going on! After expressing some disbelief between him and his girlfriend, things turned ugly.
The light turned green and we started to roll, when we heard yells and screams and kids starting running across the street into moving traffic while other kids where chasing them. Bottles were being thrown, innocent bystanders running away, we almost hit a kid with the car and almost got hit by a bottle. We got on the bridge and were home free, it was crazy, like being in the movie children of men. So I thought that was the last of it, but there is more to the story.
His brother, who was at St. Vincent's ER for a broken finger, actually ended up talking with one of the kids involved in the fight. He came in with a bloodied face from a "bottle getting broken over his head", and told his side of the story:
He said that he was an innocent bystander and was mistaken for one of the kids in the gang. He said that about 30 kids fought for like 10 minuets on the street, broken bottles flying everywhere. He said two cops showed up and all the kids starting throwing bottles at them and the cop RAN AWAY. He kept commenting on that, saying that it was crazy and he doesn't understand that the cops ran away, and that it makes him scared. This blew my mind, what a horrible example the cops are setting, now these kids know that they can bully the shit out of them. I searched all morning for more info on the fight and couldn't find anything, so I figured I should tell someone.
Great, NYPD, way to stick up for yourselves. You can tase a naked crazy person to death, but you can't disperse a bunch of rowdy kids with bottles? It's not like they were brandishing machetes or anything...
Comments
i saw this whole thing as well. i also saw an angry man coming out of his apartment with a shotgun trying to run after these kids...awesome.
Posted by: saw it | October 11, 2008 09:03 AM
I wasn't there but feel qualified to add my 2 cents because supposedly 2 cops v. 30 kids could be a fair fight.
Love your neighbor.
Posted by: wasn't a bystander | October 10, 2008 06:07 PM
crazy i saw the whole thing
i got off the train started walking home and these kids are throwing bottles metal rods and sticks at each other they fought like cowards swearing and cussing like crazy
then they jumped on cars trying to be tough or something
all i remember thinking was thats our future !!!
Posted by: rydon | October 10, 2008 03:54 PM
Brian Ries , you had me right up to the comment about ... tase a naked crazy person to death.
You are clearly confused with your fruits.
Asshole.
Posted by: meredith | October 10, 2008 03:08 PM
oh hey AA! i started contributing here, that's what happened. but let's chat about that! hit me up at moneyries@gmail.com and let's meet by the williamsburg bridge tonight? byo-bottles?
Posted by: $ries | October 10, 2008 12:41 PM
I feel like a sad little man taking the time to write such a lengthy rebuke but what the hell happened to this site?? I used to check it daily because it had intelligent and irreverent content - not to mention the funniest clips from the internetS- but more and more it seems like crap entries like this one dominate...that is, when you're not drooling all over Obama.
(I'm voting for Obama too but your complete lack of justifiable criticism is lame and a huge turn-off)
I'll just skip to gawker from now on....
Posted by: aa | October 10, 2008 11:34 AM
Yeah! I saw that going down! There were a ton of people between Roebling and Havermeyer at S 3rd. I was biking by as the cops arrived.
Posted by: grant | October 9, 2008 10:20 PM