When a woman in her mid-30s went for a recent jog in Riverside Park, she found herself to be the target of harassment by a group of teenage boys.
The incident took place on December 19 at 1:00 p.m. near West 89th Street. The woman, who we’ll refer to as “Emma” as she requested her name be kept private, said there were probably ten boys in the group, and they appeared to be between 13 and 16 years old.
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Emma said they followed her and pushed her from behind, and when she tried to leave, they came even closer and shouted profanities at her. One of the smaller and younger-looking boys hit her in the face, took her hat, and tried to provoke her into a fight.
While Emma is Asian, she told us there weren’t any racial slurs thrown at her. “I can confirm that I did not hear them say anything related to my race during the incident — I do not believe it would be considered a hate crime. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that there’s no racial bias involved though.”
Following the initial encounter, a fellow jogger asked if she was okay and began to walk her out of the park. Emma says the group then followed them and began throwing bottles in their direction.
She took a video of the boys as she was leaving.
After the incident, Emma called the police from the corner of 86th and West End Avenue. While she was waiting for officers from the 24th Precinct to arrive – which she noted took 40 minutes – she saw the same group of boys across the street. (They didn’t follow her all the way there, she just saw them on this corner after the incident.)
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Here’s a closeup of the kid who hit her, whom she describes as less than 5 feet tall with short, dark curly hair. He was wearing a purple hat at the time.
Once the police arrived, they informed her that because she wasn’t injured, the incident would be classified as harassment, not assault. Emma also said the officers weren’t interested in seeing her video, even though there aren’t surveillance cameras where the incident took place.
Emma then contacted the office of Council Member Gale Brewer, who wrote a letter on her behalf to both the commanding officer of the 24th Precinct, Inspector Naoki Yuguchi, and John Herrold, Administrator of Riverside Park. Gale said in the letter that she was “concerned that it took NYPD 40 minutes to respond; and [Emma] was surprised that NYPD officers did not want a copy of her video of the youth who surrounded her.”
We followed up on her complaint with emails to the 24th Precinct and Riverside Park Conservancy, but neither email elicited a response. However, since our inquiry, the 24th Precinct followed up with Emma and is now reviewing the materials to track down the kids.
A neighbor believed they recognized one of the kids as a student of the nearby Frank McCourt High School on 84th Street. As schools are currently closed for the holidays, though, we were unable to connect with anyone there.
Emma has not returned to Riverside Park since the incident occurred.
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“Short, black curly hair”…lolz. You can say it.
Talking about your own short and curlies, Mike? Why did you feel compelled to make this provocative comment?
Anyway, I don’t understand why the NYPD is AWOL. They have a fatter budget than ever but one never sees any cops patrolling. They only show up after an incident occurs for a week or so, and then go back to playing Candy Crush on the subway platforms. Unreal.
Dan,
My short and curlies are stuck between your mom’s teeth. We all knew the suspects’ profile before we read the description. Why hide the truth?
Bring back Bloomberg..Bring back De Blasio..FIRE party boy Adams..This situation is only going to get worse..As RICHARD 3 said to his bro Clarence “We are not safe Clarence, we are not safe”..And we aren’t..
You sound exactly like the type of person they want to risk their life for.
Apparently, they can’t. I think it has to do with shifting from racial identification to simply skin color: Dark Complexion vs. Black.
I am stunned that it took 40 minutes for officers to respond and to add insult to injury refused to take and assault and battery case. Clearly, the officer(s) didn’t want to deal with it and kissed it off as harassment charge. The underlying tone here is that some officers don’t care or don’t want to go the extra mile for the victim. I wonder if this happened to one of their loved ones, how would they react if the responding officer demonstrated the same cavalier attitude.
this is terrifying AND WHERE WERE THE POLICE!!! 40 minutes…Again your paper comes comes to aid. I reported story of person throwing pee in bottles from window and this paper conducted investigation & culprit was found AFTER police told me similarly that there was nothing they could do though I knew where it was coming from.
Very scary…. so sorry this happened to young woman and though they didn’t call her names sounds racially motivated to me AND police should also be patroling RSP
Its a gang, were there any girls under those hoods?
Young adults need places to go and things to do.
Our neighborhood needs a PAl, CYO, YMCA, or something like this.
Our schools have failed our kids!
Wake up UWS
Vince McGowan
I don’t disagree but this kind of behavior is appalling. No excuses. They don’t expect any consequences.
The situation with the police is disturbing. Has the mayor decided to withdraw services from the UWS to get the middle class to leave this opening it up for developers to mow it all down. It’s happened before.
The fact that the police wouldn’t help this woman is disgusting. Does someone have to be killed before they will do anything?
There is an epidemic of violence against women in this country. The vile lack of professionalism by the police, refusing to take this matter seriously, shows you a glimpse of why men get away daily with threatening, beating, harassing and killing women on a daily basis. These boys need to be taught from an early age that harassment is NOT OKAY and not a joke.
I am a white man in my 70s. Four years ago, the day before Hallowe’en, I was walking on 89th near Lexington Ave — about 4:00 in the afternoon. Three boys, I would guess around 15 years old and dressed in costumes to resemble pirates or something similar assaulted me, shouting offensive comments and swinging their homemade toy swords. One boy charged me and struck me with his “sword.” It hit only fleshy parts of my neck and left only a small bruise and red welt. Had it hit my jaw I’m pretty sure it would have broken the bone. I also called the police and waited over half an hour for them to arrive. Two young cops. One remained silent. The other interrogated me. When I said first that I thought the sword was metal and later referred to it as probably aluminum, the cop accused me of lying, asked me: “which was it: metal or aluminum?” and then told me that “you aren’t doing yourself any favors and should get your story straight.” Then they told me exactly what they told the jogger: because I didn’t need hospitalization it was “only” harassment and not assault and that they had no chance of catching the boys so long after the incident and based on my “terrible description.” Then they left. I wrote to their precinct captain but never heard back.
Microagression exhibited by goon policemen responding to the incident. Talk about cops who should be taken off active duty, re-trained, disciplined and/or terminated, these two
are examples of Mayor Adams and his esteemed police chief asleep continuing to be asleep at the wheel. Hope Gale Brewer gets them docked a day’s pay at the very least for THEIR “crime” against a citizen by not acting to protect her.
The responding officers couldn’t care less because the victim was both female and Asian.
That you can bet your bottom dollar on. And before you all sound off….I’m saying the same thing would have happened if she was white, black or purple. She was female and unless you’re the cop’s mother, sister or girlfriend, you don’t count. Face it….that’s who we’re hiring these days on the police force. Red-blooded sexists and misogynists. We have so much to be proud of and come so far, haven’t we?
This is insane.
Lived off of Riverside Park for 37 years and am now out of town for a while. Wish I were there. I would have crushed these punks with no thanks to the ineffectual NYPD !
Capt.Chris
Tough talk, Chris…! Cops 40 minutes late? Is 24 so short of officers? Gail Brewer— need action, not letters!
“’which was it: metal or aluminum?’”
Speaks to the “high” recruiting standards of the NYPD.
In your case, how long did it take for the cops to arrive.
In less than 40 minutes of course this woman could have walked from West End and 89th to the 24 or the 20. But she falsely assumed the cops would want to look at the area of Riverside Park in which the threat/hit occurred.
In fact, aluminum IS metal.
Not surprised that the Riverside Park Conservancy didn’t respond. They don’t respond to emails pointing problems and or liabilities in RSP.
Jay, Riverside Park Conservancy is a charity set up to fix up the park. They do not have anything to do with policing the park. That is the city government through the NYPD and Parks Enforcement. They also have little to no liability for problems in the park. Again that is NYC. Try barking up the right tree next time.
Thinking before:
And some of the choices that Riverside Park Conservancy has made (together with the City) endanger park users.
So my point stands regards problems and liabilities for RSPC.
You seem to have been confused when you responded to my comment, supposing that I was highlighting some RSPC deficiency regards crime in the park. If you bother to read my comment, you’ll see I said nothing about crime and/or policing.
I “barked” up exactly the right tree. The fact that RSPC isn’t real concerned with significant park safety issues its choices have created is hardly news. Try thinking a bit before posting next time.
Woof woof..Bring on the dogs..Bring on the Police..Thats what we the tax payers expect..RSPC is a voluntary institution isn’t it..We pay for what we get..and it is beautiful ..DONATE today..
Comments blaming individual policemen or even precincts seem to be a little nearsighted. The current state of affairs is due to police demoralization because they all were demonized so much just a few years ago, most of them unfairly. And probably because there is a drift from above of what charges to impose and what perpetrators to persecute. What we see around the city is consistent across the precincts.
We want more police on the upper west side! We do not feel safe. We need a better mayor who will install more safe police patrolled parks in our neighborhood.