Happy Gang Initiation Day

[MidtownGuy]

A friend and I are walking down Lexington toward 42nd around 10:00 Easter night, planning to see a movie on 42nd Street. At the corner of 46th street, about 20 youths (oh man, I hate that word, I really am getting old) are crossing the street toward us.

I think nothing of it, figuring it's a tour group, and then they approach and ask us "Where's Times Square?"

We pointed them west down 46th, telling them to just go straight and they'll hit it eventually. As they stepped off, one dude was like, "thanks cuz".

We thought it was strange... the way they played us kind of close while asking, and they definitely didn't look like your average tour group...thugged out, pants saggin' etc. Then we pressed on toward 42nd to take the scenic route to Times Square and forgot all about them...

...until we arrived in the Times Square area, where we saw more youths in groups of 10-20, numbering in the thousands literally. Sidewalks had those parade-gate things lining them, mobile police towers set up... cops were everywhere. At first we were clueless, as we tried to figure out why these kids were rolling in such large groups and what all the police theatrics were for.

So we're walking down 42nd toward the AMC movie theater, crossing to the block between Broadway and Eighth, and suddenly we find ourselves totally immersed in a crowd of gangs wearing their colors, yelling out their gang names, etc.

Turns out it was just...Gang Initiation Day in NYC! That's what the cops have been calling it.

Do any of you know about this? I didn't.

Apparently it happens every year, on Easter night, gang members converge on Times Square, businesses sometimes have to temporarily close for safety, people have been slashed and stabbed...the whole TS area tonight was actually crawling with gangs...I would put the number easily in the thousands.

[stache]

From the Post -

54 arrested, 3 shot in Times Square riot

By JAMIE SCHRAM, LARRY CELONA and CHRISTINA CARREGA
Last Updated: 8:33 AM, April 5, 2010
Scores of gangbangers marauded through Times Square and nearby streets last night, storming businesses and harrassing pedestrians as three people were shot in possibly related violence.
Hundreds of cops struggled to disperse the youths. Police made 54 arrests on a variety of charges, including disorderly conduct.
One man was shot in the ankle on West 41st Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues.
Early this morning two people were shot at 34th Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues. Their conditions were not immediately known. Twenty young men were seen fleeing the scene.

CHAOS: An injured cop is borne off on a stretcher in Times Square last night, as others tend to a man who was shot in the ankle during the Easter "Gang Initiation Day."


And a woman was hit by a bb pellet at West 51st Street and Seventh Avenue. Her wound was not life-threatening, authorities said.
Police were trying to determine whether the three incidents were related to the disturbances.
A cop trying to break up a rowdy group of youths outside the police substation at West 42nd Street was taken away on a stretcher after he sustained a knee injury.
"This kind of nonsense [on Easter night] has been going on for the five years I've been here," said a security guard at a business on West 42nd Street, who asked not to be identified.
"The police try to maintain the crowd, but while one side of the street is maintained, on the other side of the street, a fight breaks out."
At least 30 people, including seven juveniles, were arrested by early this morning
In past years, the NYPD and businesses have beefed up security in the area on Easter Sunday, which has become known in certain circles as "Gang Initiation Day."
In previous years, the youths, many sporting their gangs' colors, gathered first at the Auto Show at the Javits Center and then made their way to Times Square.
But this year, there was no gang activity at the show, and the youths went straight to Times Square. Cops were waiting, but had their hands full trying to stop them.
"There's a lot of young kids outside in groups of 15 to 20 people, and police are running to catch them," said Mohammed Dar, who manages a restaurant on West 42nd Street.
"Kids come in cursing at employees and we ask them to leave."
An employee at another restaurant said, "You will see them get into little spats, but cops are right on top of them. They're doing a very good job. I feel as safe as I can be here."
A worker at a newsstand said, "There's a lot of crazy people over here."
Witnesses said police pushed the youths west on 42nd Street to Eighth Avenue, and then downtown to get them to disperse.
Several businesses closed early once the trouble started.

[MidtownGuy]

un freaking believable.
The police wouldn't tell us, or the other pedestrians that we saw asking, what was going on. One cop answered cryptically , "It's Easter". Duh, and that means gangs running wild in Midtown?
If people are in danger of being shot and stabbed, you would think the city would advise people about this night. Stay away from TS on Easter night.

[Dave Mack]

Hiya Midtown. Yep. I work in Times Square (was off at 4pm yesterday so luckily missed the action) and this is like the 5th year.
Supposedly it used to start at the auto show at the Javits years ago and migrate west towards TS but this year reportedly everyone just came straight to TS. From the gangbangers POV (from interviews on some news and people I work with in the know and even though the cops dubbed it "gang initiation night") it simply is a night where everyone goes to TS to party, looks for "chicks" and represent (and admittedly for many to cause trouble) and when you have that many people from different crews, it gets out of control real fast. My friend who works with me barely got from work to Port Authority and had to be escorted by cops.

Next year it would be nice, (since last night's seems to be the worst one yet and has garnered a LOT more news attention than last year's...) if the media, the cops and hell, even Bloomy (yeah, right) would announce this BEFORE it went down so that people who are unaware of it aren't going to be in danger needlessly. And maybe some extra cops? They can control New Year's Eve down to the bag you're carrying (which back in when I was a kid had no pens and was never violent) and this, the 5th or so year in a row they can't do a better job? (not the individual cop, the city, that needs to hire more cops instead of reducing them...)

[Fabrizio]

Philly is having a problem with flash-mobs of gangs of young black men terrorizing downtown :

From the NYTimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/us/25mobs.html

From the Philadelphia Daily News:

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/loca...he_city__.html

---------------------------


It is interesting that the Times article published today gives no background info on the phenomena. To confuse matters more... listen to this quote:

“There’s a lot of troublemakers that go to the auto show each year,” said Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the Police Department, “and sometimes they get in fights afterward.”

Great explanation.

Sounds like the city is being secretive about this.... maybe afraid of the consequences to shows and restaurants over Easter?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/ny...otweb.html?hpw

[Dave Mack]

That's exactly what it is, Fabrizio. I work backstage on Broadway and everyone around here knows about it. There are actually some sunday night Broadway shows now so you had all these people leaving the theater and walking right into it. And usually the media doesn't report it that much. I was surprised at all the coverage today but last night seems really bad.

The Times is also vague about the first episode being reported at 12:08am. Maybe they just meant the first shooting but the mayhem was going on well before that.

This is my co-worker's mobile facebook post from 11:11pm

Its a night like this that I am thankful i live in Jersey! Its chaos--riots & sirens & cops...O My!!!

Yesterday at 11:11pm via Text Message · Comment · Like



The last thing Bloomberg wants is any feeling that the "New Times Square" is anything but a perfectly safe, cleaned up family fun place. When in reality at night it is often like the old days. Just go to Youtube and you can see several Times Square "fight" videos.

[MidtownGuy]

Yes, it totally seemed like the police were told not to answer questions from confused tourists and people like us, just there for a movie. I was alarmed by this. Vague responses we heard from cops like..."it's Easter, it's a holiday" honestly made it sound to tourists like we typically celebrate Easter in New York with barricades and roving gangs.

From the NY Times article:

"The auto show closed at 7 p.m., and it was not clear whether the trouble later in the night involved people who had migrated from the Javits Center toward Times Square and Penn Station."

It was very clear to us that they were arriving from east of TS, not from the direction of Javitz. I think this has nothing to do with the car show anymore. Even before I realized they were "gangs" and not just really big groups of unruly kids (where are their parents I wondered?) I knew they must have been texting to organize such a thing.

Bloomberg is an idiot if he thinks the way to deal with this is allow regular folks to show up for dinner and a show only to find themselves in the middle of "gang initiation day". And then be evaded when they ask cops what is going on.

Just before 11:00pm, the authorities closed down the TKTS steps, herding everyone off with no explanation.

I saw tourists with their children standing in the middle of all the drama...looking confused as suddenly one group of about 200 saggy pants thugged out teens came running through and chanting. That's when we got out of there, the energy was just nuts. I thought, wow, imagine if something violent goes down against random tourists...the headlines would go around the world.

Oh, and some of the gangs were all female too, some real rough and ugly biatches dressed like dudes, sagging and all that. What an embarrassment for this city.

[scumonkey]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV4cgs-bPic

[Dave Mack]

Fully agreed, midtownguy.

and in this day and age where everyone has a video camera...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB2rMSQ9Ts4

...they won't be able to keep this quiet.

and scumonkey, that's hilarious. Exactly what I was thinking. And my old apartment on 100th st was actually in the movie!

[MidtownGuy]

The footage from the youtube video unfortunately didn't show much compared to what we saw from roughly 10:00 to 11:30 when we left. It was literally packed with these "gang members" or whatever, so much that it was hard getting through to the theater. Maybe some better video will turn up soon.

I never saw "The Warriors" so you can guess what I'll be downloading. The trailer looks like it's going to be lots of fun to watch this.

[stache]

From the Times -
Mobs Are Born as Word Grows by Text Message

By IAN URBINA

Published: March 24, 2010


PHILADELPHIA — It started innocently enough seven years ago as an act of performance art where people linked through social-networking Web sites and text messaging suddenly gathered on the streets for impromptu pillow fights in New York, group disco routines in London, and even a huge snowball fight in Washington.


Laurence Kesterson/The Philadephia Inquirer

Young people filled South Street in Philadelphia on Saturday in what officials said was the latest flash mob to turn dangerous.




Seth Kaufman was injured in the flash mob Saturday, which he called “a tsunami of kids.”


But these so-called flash mobs have taken a more aggressive and raucous turn here as hundreds of teenagers have been converging downtown for a ritual that is part bullying, part running of the bulls: sprinting down the block, the teenagers sometimes pause to brawl with one another, assault pedestrians or vandalize property.
On Wednesday, the police here said that they had had enough. They announced plans to step up enforcement of a curfew already on the books, and to tighten it if there is another incident.
They added that they planned to hold parents legally responsible for their children’s actions. They are also considering making free transit passes for students invalid after 4 p.m., instead of 7 p.m., to limit teenagers’ ability to ride downtown.
“This is bad decision making by a small group of young people who are doing silly but dangerous stuff,” Mayor Michael A. Nutter said in an interview Wednesday. “We intend to do something about it immediately.”
Flash mobs are not unique to Philadelphia, but they have been more frequent here than elsewhere. Others that resulted in arrests and injuries have been reported over the past year in Boston, South Orange, N.J., and Brooklyn.
Philadelphia officials added that they had also begun getting help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to monitor social-media networks.
In the past year, at least four of the flash mobs have broken out in the city, including one on Saturday in which roving teenagers broke into fights, several onlookers were injured and at least three people were arrested.
“It was like a tsunami of kids,” said Seth Kaufman, 20, a pizza deliveryman at Olympia II Pizza & Restaurant on South Street. He lifted his shirt to show gashes along his back and arm. He also had bruises on his forehead he said were from kicks and punches he suffered while trying to keep a rowdy crowd from entering the shop, where a fight was already under way.
“By the time you could hear them yelling, they were flooding the streets and the stores and the sidewalks,” Mr. Kaufman said.
The ad hoc gangs have scared many pedestrians off the streets.
City residents are also starting to complain about the number of unsupervised children.
“We definitely need more jobs for kids, we need more summer jobs for kids, we need more after-school programming, and we need more parent support,” said Shelly Yanoff, executive director of Public Citizens for Children and Youth, a children’s advocacy group in Philadelphia.
Ms. Yanoff added that libraries and after-school programs had been reduced and a program for youth offenders had been cut sharply.
The flash mobs have raised questions about race and class.
Most of the teenagers who have taken part in them are black and from poor neighborhoods. Most of the areas hit have been predominantly white business districts.
In the flash mob on Saturday, groups of teenagers were chanting “black boys” and “burn the city,” bystanders said.
In a Feb. 16 melee, 150 teenagers spilled out of the Gallery shopping mall east of City Hall during rush hour and rampaged through Macy’s, knocking down customers and damaging displays.
The police arrested 15 of the teenagers and, according to one report, some had not been allowed to call their parents six hours after they were detained.
Clay Yeager, a juvenile justice consultant and former director of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in Pennsylvania, said he believed the flash mobs were partly a result of a decline in state money for youth violence prevention programs.
Financing for the programs has dropped 93 percent to $1.2 million in this year’s budget compared with $16 million in 2002. City financing for such programs has dropped to $1.9 million in the past three years compared with $4.1 million from 1999 through 2002, a 53 percent drop.
Mayor Nutter, who is black, rejected the notion that race or the city cut in services was a factor.
“I don’t think people should be finding excuses for inappropriate behavior,” Mr. Nutter said. “There is no racial component to stupid behavior, and parents should not be looking to the government to provide entertainment for their children.”

[Fabrizio]

^ Buried in that Times article is this bit of info. Interesting:

Philadelphia officials added that they had also begun getting help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to monitor social-media networks.

[Derek2k3]

I hate ghetto people.

[stache]

They're not doing much in the way of race relations, that's for sure.

[lofter1]

I never saw "The Warriors" so you can guess what I'll be downloading. The trailer looks like it's going to be lots of fun to watch this.

I haven't seen it in years, but it will seem naive and innocent to today's eyes.