BROOKLYN HEIGHTS —
A 13-year-old boy was stabbed in Brooklyn Bridge Park late Saturday afternoon after fights broke out among the hundreds of teens who had filled the walkways and lawns from Pier 2’s basketball courts to the picnic area at Pier 5.
According to police, the boy was stabbed three times in the back just before 6 p.m. near 50 Bridge Park Drive, aka Quay Tower, one of the tall glass high-rises within the park.
Police received the 911 call at 5:58 p.m. reporting an assault in process, said a New York Police Department spokesperson. The victim was transported to Maimonides Medical Center in stable condition, and there were no arrests by press time late Sunday.
Police had ordered the teens to leave the park, and closed down Pier 2 for the day, according to Park Police stationed at Pier 2 on Saturday.
Hundreds of teens rushed out of the park — many orderly, but some causing chaos by jumping on parked cars on Joralemon Street, and throwing objects at vehicles driving along Furman Street, which runs next to the park.
One member of a crowd heading north on Furman Street grabbed a brick and smashed the back window of a passing BMW X1 SUV, where three youngsters were sitting in the back seat. Their mom had been driving them to the skating rink in the park when they were swarmed by the crowd, the oldest child told the Brooklyn Eagle. The mother slowed and swerved to avoid hitting anyone, and that’s when the car was attacked.
“We’re just kids,” the youngster said in a shaking voice. “Now we’re traumatized.” Luckily none of the children were physically injured, but her younger siblings were very upset, she said — adding that she felt “so bad” about her mom’s car being damaged like that.
Phalanxes of NYPD and even some FDNY vehicles, sirens blaring, responded to the violence, and a helicopter swept the waterfront. One police officer on Furman Street told the Eagle that the teens had scattered in all directions.
The crowds on Joralemon Street and Willow Place “were crazy,” said one Willowtown neighbor, who wondered why there wasn’t more of a police presence in the park. “All afternoon it was crackling — you could feel the energy.” Three area residents called 911 to report the crowds and raucous behavior like jumping on cars, they added.
One couple who had been dining at the River Deli on Joralemon Street said they encountered “a wave” of surging teens as they headed home to One Brooklyn Bridge Park around 6:30 p.m. “Maybe 150 kids. They were well-behaved but they were running,” he said.
Linda DeRosa, president of the Willowtown Association, said she saw “lots of kids running, and a couple of groups walking calmly” up Joralemon Street. When she asked them what was happening, they told her they weren’t sure, but they had been asked to leave the park.
Some of the teens and youth at the park on Saturday shared videos on social media which showed crowds of disorderly youth running around helter-skelter. A 12-year-old user on a TikTok account run by “crackedtuwu” commented, “I was running away and I fell on the floor bro it was crazy.”
A YouTube video posted by V News Central shows a large crowd gathered near Pier 5 before scattering, with the poster speculating that an “underage” got hurt. Another video posted on YouTube by Cj live shows very large, unruly crowds gathering in clumps and running chaotically.
“We had received reports (via social media) early in the morning Saturday about large crowds expected,” Brooklyn Bridge Park’s spokesperson Sarah Krauss told the Eagle via email on Sunday.
“We immediately contacted the 84th Precinct who quickly mobilized a detail for the park,” she said. “They were able to diffuse crowds by late afternoon/early evening.”
She said the park administrators were unaware of the stabbing or the brick thrown through the car window.
“Yesterday was a scary day in Brooklyn Bridge Park and I hope the injured child recovers fully,” Councilmember Lincoln Restler, who represents the area, told the Eagle.
“In partnership with BBP leadership and the NYPD, we need to better manage and limit large crowds to keep everyone safe,” Restler added. “Each year, we have recurring issues in the park during the first warm days of the year. Last year, we secured a larger NYPD deployment for spring break to prevent this exact type of incident and we need to agilely increase police and park staff presence to keep everyone safe on warm spring days.”
While unruly crowds in the park are common during the first warm days of spring, unseasonably warm weather hit early on Saturday. The 84th Precinct had pre-planned for a larger police presence in the park starting in mid-April, when the trouble usually begins.
The 84th’s Commanding Officer Captain Thomas Maffei said at the 84th Precinct Community Council meeting in March that the precinct was preparing for a beefed-up Spring Break deployment in the park. “I’ve already planned it, and that’s going to carry through the summer as well,” he said.
