The teenage girl who was assaulted by some teenage bullies who followed her out of McCarren Park Pool last week needed surgery to repair her broken nose, which bled for three hours. In an interview with the NY Post, eighth-grader Sara Puk says the trouble started when the older girls said something to her in the pool that she didn't understand. When she asked what they said, one of the bullies yelled, "Shut up!" In an attempt to avoid an altercation, Puk and her friends got dressed and left, but their tormentors followed.
"We just kept on walking,’’ Sara tells the Post. "They started following us. I was trying to stand up for myself, I was like, there’s five of you guys there’s only three of us, we’re really little. I was scared, it was five against three." In the cell phone video recorded by one of the girls, you can see Puk's alleged assailant run after her and punch her in the face, then laugh. (It's not the same girl seen in the "Alicia fight this white girls" video.)
A second video, which lasts for more than four minutes, shows Puk sitting on a park bench holding a towel to her bloody nose as the alleged assailants mock her repeatedly. "Whoa," one of the attackers yells in delight, "you f**k ed her up good. You're the baddest bully, you're baddest bully. You got her good."
Puk ultimately went to an ambulance idling in the park and was taken to Wyckoff Heights Hospital, where she underwent surgery to repair her broken nose. Days later, she spotted the girl who allegedly punched her at the Annual Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Paulinus of Nola in Williamsburg. Police issued Eva Hawley, 16, a desk-appearance ticket for misdemeanor assault. Another girl, 14, was issued a juvenile report.
Asked this morning about the violent incidents that have marred the grand re-opening of McCarren Park Pool, Mayor Bloomberg said, "We had a big meeting yesterday, I believe it was, with police and [the] Parks Department to make sure that we’re doing everything we can. We will not tolerate this." According to A Walk in the Park, the Mayor also said, "Do we want to close the pool? Of course not. Kids need a place to go. Don't forget most kids don’t misbehave. Most kids follow the rules. Most parents don’t let their kids defecate in the pool. But it’s a big world out there. We’re going to keep working on it."
Maybe it's time to put a cop next to every lifeguard like he sarcastically suggested last time a reporter pestered him about violence at the pool?
