Knives-carrying gangs, shootings and robberies are plaguing Williamsburg, a neighborhood until recently that was associated with peace and entertainment. To make things worse, what's happening in Williamsburg has also become a security issue for the Polish residents of the neighboring Greenpoint.
Fashionable stores, restaurants, cafes, streets filled with people, are what you can see in Williamsburg every day. But much a grimmer reality lurks from behind this façade.
Machete attacks
The 90th precinct, which oversees this neighborhood, has recorded the highest increase in criminal activity in the whole city. The activity of Latino gangs is the major problem here. At times whole groups of youths carrying machetes look for their victims here.
Just recently 22-year-old Richard Duran was shot and killed in Williamsburg. Duran was not a gang member and had no criminal record. He became a victim of a gang called Pretty Boys Goons. On the same day, another criminal group called Triniatrios assaulted and wounded two people at the corner of South Third Street and Bedford Ave. The gangs usually seek out white males, who are often bikers.
"Since the 80s there had been no gang problem on this scale," said William Orellana, program director of the Williamsburg Leadership Center at El Puente, a local community human rights institution.
Mugging in Greenpoint
The number of burglaries, robberies and street muggings is on the rise. The 94th precinct, which oversees Brooklyn and parts of Williamsburg, has also noted an increase in criminal activity.
On Wednesday, the local police said that a young woman was mugged near the intersection of Leonard and Driggs Streets.
Orella says that gangs give their members the sense of belonging, strength and identity, which they are not able to find anywhere else. The summer months also give a boost to criminal activity, as young people are on school break with not much to do. There is no quick or easy solution to this problem.
Diana Reyna, New York City Council Member representing the 34th Council District, which includes Williamsburg and Bushwick, as well as Ridgewood in Queens, suggests that more areas to play sports should be created. Many areas that, until recently, were green and provided space for playing sports have become residential sites. Overall, recreational areas accessible to the public are disappearing. McCarren Park is gradually being surrounded by residential buildings.
Editor’s note: According to the recent statistics by NYPD, the number of felony assaults in the area of the 90th precinct in Brooklyn surged 18.8 percent, from 138 in 2007 to 164 in 2008.
