J.D. Oxblood

I know I promised everyone an update on the uncorroborated story of two girls getting sliced up in Williamsburg, and, well, I don’t have one. I haven’t been able to nail down my sources and there has been not a word on the crime waves. But that’s not to say that I don’t have an update on the crime scene in Billburg and the absolutely ACES job the cops are doing (sarcasm implied, if not implicitly stated).

Here’s the latest, too close to home: My neighbors were robbed last weekend. About 10pm, Friday night, someone(s) worked his way into a hidden courtyard that provides access to several apartment buildings, opened a window, crawled in, and walked out with two laptops and several hundred dollars in paper. As you would guess, the poor late twenty-somethings don’t have renters insurance, and are out something to the tune of $6 grand. That’s a nice chunk of change for a New Yorker surviving on under $30 grand a year (my guess). The news just kept getting better… I happened to be outside when two beat cops were asking the detective on the scene — who was interviewing the victims — some questions. The sound bites were awe-inspiring.

ROOKIE BEAT COP: How many is that this week? Three? Four?

DETECTIVE: More like thirteen, fourteen.

OLDER BEAT COP: It’ll take a lot of luck to catch this guy.

ROOKIE: How did he even know about that area? I wouldn’t know there were buildings back there unless I had a satellite.

JDX: You mean, like, Google maps?

ROOKIE: Huh? (To Detective) So what should we do? Just start stopping everyone with backpacks?

Absolute genius. I started checking the crime blotter in the Brooklyn Paper, which is just about the best place to get anything resembling real information. The Aug. 30 blotter reports “at least three” homes broken into in the area in the previous week. A little more forgiving than my detective friend, but you can believe what you want. The Aug. 13 blotter had some even more fun news:

“A vicious gang of knife-wielding brutes attacked a 22-year-old man as he walked home from the bar on Aug. 10. The victim told cops that the quartet of hoods cornered him at Havemeyer and Grand streets just after midnight. “You mad pussy,” one of the perps taunted before punching the victim in the face. … Only after the attack did the victim realize he had also been sliced across the hand and stabbed three times in his stomach.”

Whoo hoo! And, in case you missed this, the week after Richard Duran was murdered:

“A masked gunman shot a 28-year-old man as he walked with his friend on South Second Street on July 20. … One of the bullets missed, but the other struck the victim in the left side of the torso, leaving him bleeding on the sidewalk between Roebling Street and Driggs Avenue.”

Don’t forget my original premise, kiddos — all this shit is going down spitting distance from the corner of too-cool-for-school and too-dumb-to-get-a-job, or Bedford and N. 7th, as Mapquest would call it. You can’t get a two bedroom apartment anywhere for under $2 grand, and the condos are going up quicker than Halliburton stock after Georgie’s “mission accomplished” landing.

So tell us, Grampa Oxblood, what are the cops doing?

I’m so glad you asked. Turns out that on August 16, the intrepid NYPD was sufficiently upset about a roving street party calling itself “Pandamonium” — all participants wear panda masks or panda-like face-paint — that they cracked down on that shit!

Hell’s yeah! We can’t be having a bunch of kids running around the street in panda masks getting drunk and having a good time! Not in my city! Courtesy, Professionalism, and Respect! Boo-yeah! Do not miss this action photo of cops “subduing” (i.e., slamming him to the ground and pressing his face into the asphalt) a—dare I say it? Does it smack of a Le Tigre song? Or Bruce Springsteen? Fuck it, it’s true — a black man.

What a solid bunch of guys. Especially in Williamsburg, where, like, all those young white hipster people really need to be protected from integration. The message boards are full of NIMBY motherfuckers bitching about how these panda assholes shouldn’t be roaming the streets — and, for reals, if they’re walking around with open containers they deserve what they get — but forgive me for saying that I’d rather put up with a bunch of drunk hipsters in panda masks than, say, GANGS OF MACHETE-WIELDING THUGS. That’s just how I roll.

In closing, I leave you with these words, from the “comments” following my “Machetes, part II.” (Thanks, superslav.)

“Here’s what your cops in North Bklyn are doing:

My husband and his co-workers were drinking beers after work one day in the trouble spot. They work in film, and were loading up the truck and cooling down with a couple of brews when two cops walked up. Since the cops only saw my husband actually take a sip, they started writing him an open container ticket. He was annoyed, but didn’t give any shit because he was in front of the entire crew and, uh, guilty.

All of a sudden another cop comes up and tells my husband he “isn’t going to like this” but they’re going to have to take him into the station. He wasn’t “under arrest” per se, but he had to be questioned because there had been machete attacks in the area. He assured them he knew nothing about any machete attacks. No matter. They cuffed him in front of the entire crew (no Miranda rights read), called for a paddy wagon, and led him by his thumbs to the back. He told his boss he was being arrested and the cops kept insisting he wasn’t under arrest, just that they needed to take him in for questioning…to see “the detective.” Just a friendly waste of taxpayers time and money.

To conclude/do the math: 5 police officers and a paddy wagon to wrongfully detain a man at work for a $25 open container ticket. “Bloomberg, a fucking word, please?” is fucking-a right!”

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day to be neighbors… won’t you be mine?

Kiss kiss,

JDX