Results tagged “stabbings”

The Daily News has more information about the multiple stabbings in Times Square on Friday night. Apparently the opening of Saw V at the AMC Empire 25 on 42nd Street had something to do with it: "Tension built after swarms of teens and young adults were trying to exit and enter theaters, including disappointed groups who couldn't get into sold-out shows." A police source called it "a tinderbox" and a witness described, "It seemed like hundreds of kids, roaming around in packs, screaming, yelling, running through the streets like wild animals." One of the victims, stabbed in the neck, is left partially paralyzed. The police, which made a few arrests, is having its gang unit investigate; a witness explained, "There were gangs all around the area, all over 42nd St. You can tell by their bandanas."

Neighbors weighed in about Astoria club Tahona, which had a violent early Sunday morning when a fight broke out during last call. Five people were stabbed: five teen males argued with other club patrons--though they walked away, the Post reports a Dodge Caravan came by, "several young men with knives jumped out," stabbing them, near Steinway Street and 35th Avenue. A witness told the Daily News, "Fifty kids brawling over there. Stomping at each other, girls hitting guys - it was crazy." Another told the Post, "I usually put my police scanner on at 4 a.m. to catch the fights. It's like a game every week." Apparently neighbors have been complaining about fighting, "clubgoers throwing glass bottles and blasting loud music in their cars."

All has been silent on the stabby front in the South Side of Williamsburg. Metro now takes a look at the incidents, which have been going on since April of this year, and have often involved machetes (possibly wielded by the gang called Trinitarios). The paper reports that the 90th Precinct has "experienced the sharpest rise in crime since last year of any neighborhood in Brooklyn," coming in at 13.49% (as a comparison, the 94th precinct--which includes Williamsburg's North Side and Greenpoint--has seen a 6.38% rise in crime). City councilwoman Diana Reyna told Metro, “We don’t want to overstate the problem. But if we don’t do something, we’re going to have serious problems.”

Last year 43% of readers voted that that NYPD's Sky Watch was useless. Now Animal New York reports on the retractable 20-foot-tall watchtower and now it's popping up in more and more neighborhoods (they name Crown Heights, Harlem and DUMBO as a few). More recently one of the temporary watchtowers has been erected on Graham Avenue and Moore Street, which they pinpoint as "the Bushwickish section of Williamsburg." Allegedly this one is for some robberies that have taken place in the area, but shouldn't it be moved over to Williamsburg proper for, you know, the recent rash of machete stabbings? We did, however, get some reader tips this week of one stabbing that took place on Bushwick Avenue and Flushing last weekend, where a young man was slashed with a box cutter, despite nothing being taken from him.

The NY Post reports that "felonious assaults were up 21 percent as of July 6, compared to the same time period in 2007" in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. On the topic of the recent stabbings, the article quotes a 17-year-old student from the area who claims much of the violence is from "warring youth gangs, largely Hispanic, [who] cross a Brooklyn-Queens Expressway line of demarcation and prey upon each other." The Saturday stabbing was reportedly carried out by a South Side Williamsburg gang called the Trinitarios. These guys are known to trash talk via raps on YouTube; it's just like West Side Story...but with machetes and real blood.

The Daily News sheds some light on Saturday morning's stabbings in Williamsburg (though the Post's sources seem to tell a slightly different story). They report: "A machete-wielding mob marching down a gritty Brooklyn street stabbed a pair of teenagers Saturday during a bloody night in the city that left two other men dead. About 15 suspected gang members, wearing T-shirts over their faces, stormed down S. Third St. in Williamsburg around 2 a.m. brandishing 18-inch blades and yelling for their intended target to show himself." The group, who are said to belong to Trinitarios gang, couldn't find their target so attacked his two friends instead. They are both expected to survive. No arrests have been made, and it's still unclear if these stabbings were related to previous ones.