Police Action at Prospect Park on B/Q - Lincoln Rd. Entrance

large-ish incidents show up here:

http://gothamist.com/map/

It looks like there was a murder at Island and Hinkley at around 7 AM.... could be related

Is it this?:

http://gothamist.com/2011/06/29/two_crooks_tried_to_torch_a_token_b.php

In a move straight out of 80s New York, two would-be robbers early this morning tried to gain access to the station agent booth at the Prospect Park Q stop. But when the female agent in the booth refused to let them in they responded by pouring gasoline on the booth's window and into the booth, which they then lit on fire, MTA officials say.

The incident occurred a little after 5 a.m.. After setting the blaze the perps quickly fled, police say. Luckily the station agent—who joined the MTA in January 1994 and whose name has not been released—responded quickly and put out the fire with an extinguisher. A straphanger reportedly helped put the blaze out from the outside as well. Police say the agent was taken to Methodist Hospital for observation and possible smoke inhalation but appears to be fine.

Police are currently investigating, and have not yet released any information about the arsonists other than the fact that they seemed to be in their late teens or early 20s. They remain at large.

"It was like an old-time robbery," union official Joe Bermudez pointed out to the News. For a while in the late 80s and early 90s criminals would torch booths as a means to get access to the tokens and cash inside (which was also when token booths still had tokens and carried much more cash).

And they keep saying Park Slope is crime free.

Mr. Booklaw, I am addressing those who keep telling me that Park Slope is a utopian bubble onto itself when in reality I know for a fact that it is not. I am armed with personal experience. It just disturbs me that certain posters on this forum mock me by calling me names or crazy. Hell, I have even been scolded for my views on the judicial system. It saddens me that you, booklaw, are jumping aboard. The statistics do not lie so why kill the messenger.

Perhaps it is my fault for assuming that all the threads are about Park Slope(my neighborhood). I am just noticing that there are other neighborhoods represented on the greater page of Brooklynian. If I am out of line then many apologies.

I think the tone to the article indicates that subway booth torchings are very unusual in 2011.

I can't imagine that anyone expects any neighborhood in NY to be utopian.

It was probably a small can of lighter fluid. I remember that being the weapon of choice more than a few years ago when torching subway agents was a fad.

Yeah, back in the late 80's/early 90's it was a common move. That was before the metrocard, when token booths were cash heavy and were usually staffed by two employees, often two women. Guys would run up and squirt lighter fluid over the outside of the booth and set it ablaze. The women would run out to save themselves and then the criminals would run in, grab the cash and exit.

The MTA started telling employees to remain in the booths, call police/fire and wait it out, but staff was understandably unwilling to do that, especially in low trafficed stations late at night. It was one of the reasons booths were upgraded to include sprinklers, a/c and heat, so that clerks wouldn't leave or prop open the doors.

I think it all came to a head when some idiot acutally squirted the lighter fluid into the booth through the little change area and set the inside of the booth on fire seriously injuring the clerk. He was caught and put under the jail and that seemed to cause people to think twice about the crime.

This was a straight crackhead crime, but one which was usually good for a couple thousand dollars or the euqivalent in tokens if you could carry them. It was actually such a common thing, that it showed up in the movie Money Train (a lot of which was shot in Bed-Stuy on the shuttle and A train lines).

A lot of shit was happening back then in the City and the metro area. Lighter fluids in token booths was one problem. Mini race-riots, rapes, crack related activities (PO Eddie Byrne being a famous victim). Vigilantes, disco burnings, police corruption (ex:77th Pct), police rioting & brutality(Tompkins Sq.), city corruption (Ex: Donald Manes) and much more. Kids, adults, white, black, Jew & Gentile...all were pretty much involved on both ends of the Predator/Victim stick.

Idlewild said:

A lot of shit was happening back then in the City and the metro area. Lighter fluids in token booths was one problem. Mini race-riots, rapes, crack related activities (PO Eddie Byrne being a famous victim). Vigilantes, disco burnings, police corruption (ex:77th Pct), police rioting & brutality(Tompkins Sq.), city corruption (Ex: Donald Manes) and much more. Kids, adults, white, black, Jew & Gentile...all were pretty much involved on both ends of the Predator/Victim stick.

all of which inspired the movie classic: The Warriors.

The movie was mostly fantasy, but it was one of my favorite movies in high school.

My friends and I watched it, and then repeated "Can youuuu dig it?" to each other for at least a month.

Although, NY wasn't as bad as the movie depicted, it was pretty bad. ...the movie was made in 1979, which is before a lot of the craziness Idlewild describes. Although the film pre-dates the "crack period", the "heroin period" was reportedly no wonderful time either.

SnowboardQueen said:

That sounds like.., I'm actually at a loss for words - for once. It's beyond scary times.., I really can not find the appropriate adjective(s), beyond surreal & bizarre & God awful.

The thing is it wasn't all that scary. It was just kind of life, the way we sort of shrug our shoulders now at the thought that folks get jacked for their Ipods.

One of the clearest memories of my young life in NYC was the occasional walks I had to make through the Hoyt-Schmerhorn station in the mornings when I was late for school. There is a long corridor which ran next to the basement windows and entrance to Mays. The store decided to close that entrance to deter criminals and they painted all the windows black. The corridor was lit by a series of single lightbulbs hung about ten feet apart down a 50-60 foot corridor. Guys used to unscrew the middle three lightbulbs and would lie in wait for folks to rob as they walked through the darkened area.

I used to sprint through there with my books and gym bag praying that a hand wouldn't reach out of the dark to grab me. But it never occurred to me to take the other exit and make the walk outside, or to get off at another stop. As a kid it was just one of those things that came with living in the city. I realize now I probably made a pretty bad target for cirminals considering all I was carrying was a bunch of books.

I totally agree, Stacey.

The show "Everyone Hates Chris" also comes to mind, with its stories of being a kid in the 80s.

whynot_31 said:

The movie was mostly fantasy, but it was one of my favorite movies in high school.

My friends and I watched it, and then repeated "Can youuuu dig it?" to each other for at least a month.

Although, NY wasn't as bad as the movie depicted, it was pretty bad. ...the movie was made in 1979, which is before a lot of the craziness Idlewild describes. Although the film pre-dates the "crack period", the "heroin period" was reportedly no wonderful time either.

It wasn't. But as campy (almost makes you cringe) as the dialogue is in The Warriors is, the setting and general psychology is spot on for the period. If memory serves me correctly criminal violence on "civilians" was mostly one on one. Addicts mugging to get fixes. A lot of the gangs fought amongst themselves. This isn't to say they didn't target non-gang members, there were certainly a slew of robberies. Especially in homes and the subways. In fact some gangs actually kept outside crime out of their areas. The 69'ers was one such group. They called Park Slope down to the Gowanus area their home. I believe the Savage Skulls did the same in their parts of Brooklyn, the Bronx and upper Manhattan. Curtis Sliwa brought attention to it all by setting up the Guardian Angels, but even he was thrown for a loop on what was about to become. I don't even think it was crack that got the whole city-wide insanity going. Although I do believe it was fuel for certain fires. Certainly Howard Beach, the Central Park Rape, Tompkins Square Park was fully independent of drugs and had more to do with people being plain fucking bat-shit nuts.