Crime & Safety

The Case of the Unclaimed Backpack

Officers from the 76 Pct address why they did not respond to a recent call.

Earlier this week, neighborhood blog Pardon Me For Asking posted about two incidents that allegedly took place over the weekend, the first involving an assault and the second regarding a discarded backpack. In both cases, parties involved told PMFA that the response by the 76 Precinct had been insufficient. 

When neither of these incidents was included in the week's police blotter info provided by the 76 Precinct, Carroll Gardens Patch decided to investigate why and tracked down some answers.

On Saturday, May 5, at 3:30 p.m. a reader told PMFA that "a teenager attacked three people... for no apparent reason. He got into an altercation with a man on a bicycle and this somehow escalated into him attacking a man standing in the doorway of and then rushing at me when I screamed that I was calling the police. Long story short, he got away down Warren Street towards Smith." 

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The reader then told PMFA that police were called and a report was filed.

When asked why this incident was not included in the blotter information, officers from the 76 Precinct responded that no assaults had been recorded that matched the description on that date. Furthermore, due to the location of the alleged altercation, police noted that it was highly likely the 84 Precinct had responded instead of them.

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The second incident that PMFA posted about is slightly greyer.

Another PMFA reader wrote that on Friday, May 4, at approximately 4:30 p.m. "a mob of school kids 12 to 14 years old, rushed pass us and tossed a knapsack by the doorway of 396 Court. Presuming that the backpack had been stolen, A. and I tried to be good samaritans and called the 76th precinct only to get a recording."

After multiple attempts to contact the 76 Precinct yielded only recordings, a 911 call was made and the reader was told that a car was on its way. Before that could happen, however, the bag was ultimately picked up by a young man in another group of kids walking by.

"When we tried to stop him and told him we had called the police, his entourage threateningly gestured at us to stop bothering them. They then ran off through the park down toward Smith," the reader told PMFA, then once again tried to report the incident to the Precinct later that evening but was disconnected.

When asked why no one immediately responded, representatives from the 76 Precinct explained that at the time of this alleged incident, multiple officers were responding to a scene elsewhere involving a firearm.

There was one other caveat: "No one ever reported a bag missing," said the police. "What that person saw may have looked like something that it wasn't. It sounds to me like a bunch of kids were rough-housing, they threw someone's bag and then he picked it up later. Kids will be kids. But at the end of the day, we can't investigate a situation like that until a person reports an item missing."

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