Glenn E. Meyer
New member
So what, dear friends is missing in this discussion. From the NY Times today.
When Crime Was Always on Our Minds
By THOMAS J. LUECK
In the bad old days of street crime, an era most New Yorkers would think of as before 1990, it was a personal quandary and a public obsession: If assaulted, do I run, hand over the money or stand and fight? And should I carry a weapon?
They were the days of “mugger’s money,” or cash carried simply to placate a robber who might otherwise use a knife or gun. People flocked to martial arts classes for self-defense. For many, carrying a concealed knife or pepper spray became a prudent precaution.
Now, in a city that prides itself as being one of the nation’s safest, a bloody melee on a Harlem street is flashing New Yorkers back to the era of anticrime tactics. Just before midnight Thursday, the police said, Maurice Parks, 39, a subway motorman who had just ended his shift, was preyed upon by a group of muggers armed with at least one knife.
Mr. Parks, who had fended off an attack in Queens in 1994 and had studied martial arts, was prepared. After he was knocked down and robbed, he pulled a knife of his own, and fought back in a ferocious exchange that killed a man who may have been trying to intervene, and left two others — including Mr. Parks — hospitalized with bloody stab wounds.
The actions of Mr. Parks, who has not been charged with a crime, have prompted people across the city to go through the mental what-ifs that once were an everyday burden.
“I would have done the same thing,” said Diamond Torres, 26, a native New Yorker who said she was robbed when she was 13. Ms. Torres, who lives on the Lower East Side, said she carries a box-cutter knife for her own protection. Under city law, it is legal to carry knives with blades shorter than four inches, except for some that are specifically outlawed, including switchblades.
“I might be scared at first,” she said, “but my next reaction would be to defend myself.”
But Joshua Stokes, 28, a resident of the East Village who has been living in the city since 1999, did not share Ms. Torres’s concerns. “I don’t ever find myself in fear of getting mugged,” he said. If he were confronted on the street, he “would try to avoid an altercation,” he said, adding, “I would give them whatever I had.”
Although many details remain unclear — including who struck the first blow — the case involving Mr. Parks provided a grim reminder that violence escalates and can lead to unintended consequences. The police said that the man who was killed, Flonarza M. Byas, 28, was stabbed by Mr. Parks. Although Mr. Byas did not appear to have been among those who first attacked Mr. Parks, the police did not know whether he joined the robbery, was a bystander, or perhaps was a good Samaritan who tried to intervene, as his family maintains.
The police arrested Leandro Ventura, 15, on Friday on a charge of first-degree robbery. Another suspect, Edwin Bonilla, 18, was arrested Sunday on a robbery charge, and a third was in the hospital.
“While I don’t think people should carry knives, some undoubtedly do,” said former Mayor Edward I. Koch, whose tenure at City Hall, from 1978 through 1989, included the shooting in 1984 of four aggressive teenage panhandlers on a Manhattan subway train by Bernard Goetz. The case provoked passions across the nation, with some condemning Mr. Goetz as a vigilante, and others calling his action a galvanizing event for a city that had been too willing to accept a relentless rise in crime.
All four teenagers survived, but one was paralyzed. Mr. Goetz was convicted of illegal weapons possession, and served eight months in prison.
“I think Bernard Goetz was part of a national syndrome,” Mr. Koch said. “There was a feeling that crime had gotten so far out of hand that you could not depend on government to stop it.”
He added, “That feeling stopped in the early 1990s.” The case involving Mr. Parks “is an aberration, not a norm,” he said.
Reactions to the assault on Thursday night, which came after Mr. Parks was approached at 139th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, differed widely. Some said they were surprised that anyone would even think of fighting back against armed assailants. Some praised Mr. Parks’s foresight in carrying a knife, and his courage in using it.
Kenneth Roberts, 57, a subway conductor who said he did not know Mr. Parks, said he was impressed that Mr. Parks had stood his ground. “When I heard that he fought back, I thought it was a good thing.” But, he added, “it’s sad that it’s still happening in this day and age.”
Mr. Roberts, a powerfully built man who stands 5 feet 11 inches, said he did not carry a weapon. But he said he believed he carried himself in a way that would discourage troublemakers.
“You walk upright,” he said. “You walk strong.”
Law enforcement experts say that there is no way to measure how many New Yorkers carry weapons like knives or pepper spray for self-defense, but that their prevalence in the city has all but certainly declined as street robberies and assaults have become less frequent.
Police data does not separate muggings from other forms of robbery, including bank robbery, but the incidence of all robberies has fallen almost steadily for more than 20 years. Compared with 1981, when the city reached a dismal point in recording 107,495 robbery complaints, there were 21,577 such complaints in 2007, the police said.
To a large degree, the experts said, people sense that a threat has been lifted. “I used to get questions all the time about Mace and knives and whether teens should carry these things around,” said Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission, a group that monitors crime and police policies. “I don’t anymore, and my sense is people don’t feel as much need for self-protection.”
And although martial arts training remains a popular pursuit for New Yorkers, their reasons appear to have changed. “In the early 1990s, people were training in all kinds of martial arts primarily for self-defense,” said Jason McCarthy, the owner of New York Jiu Jitsu, a martial arts school in Greenwich Village. Now, he said, “New York is cleaner and safer, and they tend to look for other benefits,” including exercise and camaraderie.
And the shift in attitude is warranted, Mr. McCarthy said, since even the most advanced forms of martial arts provide little protection against some armed assailants. “If someone is skilled with a knife, there is no martial art that gives you a real chance,” he said. “I tell people to run.”
Although it is now far more common for New Yorkers to carry iPods, some city residents said they do carry “mugger’s money,” usually a small amount of cash, sometimes kept apart from their wallet. But most said the practice was a vestige of a darker past.
“I don’t carry anything, specifically,” said Cynthia Rodriguez, 54, as she left her church on Friday night on 139th Street, only a few blocks from where Mr. Parks was assaulted the night before. “It’s a different climate, a different culture.”
Out of curiosity, Dave Moody, 35, a Harlem resident, made it a point to stop by the intersection where Mr. Parks was attacked. “I wanted to get a personal view of the place,” he said. He said he had always felt safe in the neighborhood, and “that hasn’t changed.” If confronted, he said, he would avoid a fight. “If I pull out a knife, it would just exacerbate it,” he said.
Law enforcement experts looking for parallels between Mr. Parks’s confrontation and that of Mr. Goetz 23 years earlier said there were few to be found.
Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for The New Yorker, included an analysis of the Goetz case in his 2000 book, “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,” as an example of how change can gain momentum swiftly across a broad spectrum of social phenomenon — from shoe fashions to crime rates.
“These two events are just not comparable,” Mr. Gladwell said. “The Goetz incident was when we hit rock bottom.”
“There was a spontaneous outpouring, with people calling him a hero,” he said. “We are so far from that now.”
When Crime Was Always on Our Minds
By THOMAS J. LUECK
In the bad old days of street crime, an era most New Yorkers would think of as before 1990, it was a personal quandary and a public obsession: If assaulted, do I run, hand over the money or stand and fight? And should I carry a weapon?
They were the days of “mugger’s money,” or cash carried simply to placate a robber who might otherwise use a knife or gun. People flocked to martial arts classes for self-defense. For many, carrying a concealed knife or pepper spray became a prudent precaution.
Now, in a city that prides itself as being one of the nation’s safest, a bloody melee on a Harlem street is flashing New Yorkers back to the era of anticrime tactics. Just before midnight Thursday, the police said, Maurice Parks, 39, a subway motorman who had just ended his shift, was preyed upon by a group of muggers armed with at least one knife.
Mr. Parks, who had fended off an attack in Queens in 1994 and had studied martial arts, was prepared. After he was knocked down and robbed, he pulled a knife of his own, and fought back in a ferocious exchange that killed a man who may have been trying to intervene, and left two others — including Mr. Parks — hospitalized with bloody stab wounds.
The actions of Mr. Parks, who has not been charged with a crime, have prompted people across the city to go through the mental what-ifs that once were an everyday burden.
“I would have done the same thing,” said Diamond Torres, 26, a native New Yorker who said she was robbed when she was 13. Ms. Torres, who lives on the Lower East Side, said she carries a box-cutter knife for her own protection. Under city law, it is legal to carry knives with blades shorter than four inches, except for some that are specifically outlawed, including switchblades.
“I might be scared at first,” she said, “but my next reaction would be to defend myself.”
But Joshua Stokes, 28, a resident of the East Village who has been living in the city since 1999, did not share Ms. Torres’s concerns. “I don’t ever find myself in fear of getting mugged,” he said. If he were confronted on the street, he “would try to avoid an altercation,” he said, adding, “I would give them whatever I had.”
Although many details remain unclear — including who struck the first blow — the case involving Mr. Parks provided a grim reminder that violence escalates and can lead to unintended consequences. The police said that the man who was killed, Flonarza M. Byas, 28, was stabbed by Mr. Parks. Although Mr. Byas did not appear to have been among those who first attacked Mr. Parks, the police did not know whether he joined the robbery, was a bystander, or perhaps was a good Samaritan who tried to intervene, as his family maintains.
The police arrested Leandro Ventura, 15, on Friday on a charge of first-degree robbery. Another suspect, Edwin Bonilla, 18, was arrested Sunday on a robbery charge, and a third was in the hospital.
“While I don’t think people should carry knives, some undoubtedly do,” said former Mayor Edward I. Koch, whose tenure at City Hall, from 1978 through 1989, included the shooting in 1984 of four aggressive teenage panhandlers on a Manhattan subway train by Bernard Goetz. The case provoked passions across the nation, with some condemning Mr. Goetz as a vigilante, and others calling his action a galvanizing event for a city that had been too willing to accept a relentless rise in crime.
All four teenagers survived, but one was paralyzed. Mr. Goetz was convicted of illegal weapons possession, and served eight months in prison.
“I think Bernard Goetz was part of a national syndrome,” Mr. Koch said. “There was a feeling that crime had gotten so far out of hand that you could not depend on government to stop it.”
He added, “That feeling stopped in the early 1990s.” The case involving Mr. Parks “is an aberration, not a norm,” he said.
Reactions to the assault on Thursday night, which came after Mr. Parks was approached at 139th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, differed widely. Some said they were surprised that anyone would even think of fighting back against armed assailants. Some praised Mr. Parks’s foresight in carrying a knife, and his courage in using it.
Kenneth Roberts, 57, a subway conductor who said he did not know Mr. Parks, said he was impressed that Mr. Parks had stood his ground. “When I heard that he fought back, I thought it was a good thing.” But, he added, “it’s sad that it’s still happening in this day and age.”
Mr. Roberts, a powerfully built man who stands 5 feet 11 inches, said he did not carry a weapon. But he said he believed he carried himself in a way that would discourage troublemakers.
“You walk upright,” he said. “You walk strong.”
Law enforcement experts say that there is no way to measure how many New Yorkers carry weapons like knives or pepper spray for self-defense, but that their prevalence in the city has all but certainly declined as street robberies and assaults have become less frequent.
Police data does not separate muggings from other forms of robbery, including bank robbery, but the incidence of all robberies has fallen almost steadily for more than 20 years. Compared with 1981, when the city reached a dismal point in recording 107,495 robbery complaints, there were 21,577 such complaints in 2007, the police said.
To a large degree, the experts said, people sense that a threat has been lifted. “I used to get questions all the time about Mace and knives and whether teens should carry these things around,” said Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission, a group that monitors crime and police policies. “I don’t anymore, and my sense is people don’t feel as much need for self-protection.”
And although martial arts training remains a popular pursuit for New Yorkers, their reasons appear to have changed. “In the early 1990s, people were training in all kinds of martial arts primarily for self-defense,” said Jason McCarthy, the owner of New York Jiu Jitsu, a martial arts school in Greenwich Village. Now, he said, “New York is cleaner and safer, and they tend to look for other benefits,” including exercise and camaraderie.
And the shift in attitude is warranted, Mr. McCarthy said, since even the most advanced forms of martial arts provide little protection against some armed assailants. “If someone is skilled with a knife, there is no martial art that gives you a real chance,” he said. “I tell people to run.”
Although it is now far more common for New Yorkers to carry iPods, some city residents said they do carry “mugger’s money,” usually a small amount of cash, sometimes kept apart from their wallet. But most said the practice was a vestige of a darker past.
“I don’t carry anything, specifically,” said Cynthia Rodriguez, 54, as she left her church on Friday night on 139th Street, only a few blocks from where Mr. Parks was assaulted the night before. “It’s a different climate, a different culture.”
Out of curiosity, Dave Moody, 35, a Harlem resident, made it a point to stop by the intersection where Mr. Parks was attacked. “I wanted to get a personal view of the place,” he said. He said he had always felt safe in the neighborhood, and “that hasn’t changed.” If confronted, he said, he would avoid a fight. “If I pull out a knife, it would just exacerbate it,” he said.
Law enforcement experts looking for parallels between Mr. Parks’s confrontation and that of Mr. Goetz 23 years earlier said there were few to be found.
Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for The New Yorker, included an analysis of the Goetz case in his 2000 book, “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,” as an example of how change can gain momentum swiftly across a broad spectrum of social phenomenon — from shoe fashions to crime rates.
“These two events are just not comparable,” Mr. Gladwell said. “The Goetz incident was when we hit rock bottom.”
“There was a spontaneous outpouring, with people calling him a hero,” he said. “We are so far from that now.”
