Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Hollaback girl

Isvett Verde, a 28-year-old NYU student, boarded a “very crowded” Manhattan-bound E train last week at 23 Street/Ely Avenue when she felt “a rather strange sensation” in her “nether regions.”

“Someone was grabbing a hold of my crotch and holding on for dear life,” she said.

She snapped a picture of the man — the same man she believes fondled her on the E train two years ago — and showed the picture to a cop when she got out at West 4th Street. The officer expressed little interest, so she later called 311 (as advised by her boss who saw her crying about the incident) and two other officers were dispatched to her office. They suggested she get mace and a gun — “perhaps sarcastically” — but took no statement on the incident, Verde said.


Woman hollas at E perv

Statistics seem to indicate that crime is down. Probably because the police are refusing to take reports.

Photo from Bridge and Tunnel Club

40 comments:

Anonymous said...

If she reported that someone was taking pictures down there they'd be in action like Batman!

www.forgotten-ny.com

Anonymous said...

I started hearing stories like this 30 years ago by a neighbor. This neighbor experienced a perv indivdual doing really, sick things in front of her and everyone else while seated on a packed 8am E train to Manhattan. She was not a timid soul,shouted at this sicko, leaped up and clawed his face.He was brought down by other passengers and arrested at the next stop. A month later the same perv was spraying her on the same train/ same hour. Ask your girlfriends and wives what they experience - you'd be surprised how commonplace and persistent these jackals are - Real scary!

Anonymous said...

You don't think crime is down? I have lived in this city my whole life, and believe me, compared to 15-20 years ago, crime is down by a huge amount. Back then, you pretty much expected your car to get stolen every so often, and you always heard about someone you knew getting mugged or robbed periodically. Murders are going to come in at under 500 this year, compared to over 2200 per year back in the early 90s, car thefts are down about 90% from back then, and I don't think there are many murders or car thefts out there that are going unreported.

Queens Crapper said...

I have lived in this city my entire life as well, and I do not feel as safe today as I did 10 years ago. There is also a shitload of graffiti around which was not there before the Bloomberg administration.

Anonymous said...

Maybe its because we have less cops because they are paid peanuts. Meanwhile Bloomie's aides get all kinds of perks.

Anonymous said...

Crapper - since you run this blog, don't you think that at least you should avoid the foul language?
As for graffiti, that has been a problem in this city and every major city around the world for decades. It is very hard to quantify if there is more graffiti now than there had been in the past, so to say there is more or less now is practically unprovable. However, graffiti arrests in this city have risen significantly under the Bloomberg administration.

Queens Crapper said...

I think I should be free to express myself however I want, as Bloomberg hasn't yet legislated against dirty words, thank you very much. As for graffiti, I can easily quantify it. I have been taking pictures of my neighborhood and surrounding ones for many years, going back to -gasp- before digital photography. I have few photos of graffiti covered buildings from the B.B. era (Before Bloomberg). I have a shitload of them from the past few years. Maybe the reason graffiti arrests are up now is because graffiti vandalism is more common. Years back, there were regular patrols aimed at PREVENTING the graffiti. Now I wake up and see a new tag every morning.

Anonymous said...

Crappy you should bring your camera to Woodhaven. Totally disgusting.

Anonymous said...

My neighbor was mugged. They knocked him over the head and took his wallet. He called 911 and the operator asked if he had a description of the suspect. He said he was attacked from behind and didn't see them. He was told, "Well there's no point in me taking your call, go to the precinct in the morning."

Anonymous said...

My brother's car was broken into and the cops responded after 4 hours, only to say they wouldn't take a report because nothing was stolen. They wrote my brother's info down on a napkin and didn't even leave their cruiser.

Anonymous said...

I tried flagging a police car down once because there was a crime in progress. They looked at me, laughed, and kept driving.

Anonymous said...

Actually, it should be easy to quantify whether there is more or less graffiti, because precincts with a lot of it have officers dedicated to investigation of vandalism who take their own photo records of tags. These should be FOILable.

Anonymous said...

It is not about freedom of speech, it is about presenting yourself respectably and intelligently when making statements in a public forum. If you want the people who can make a difference to take you seriously, then you should present yourself properly and credibly and try to lead by example.
Your random pictures do not constitute quantifiable evidence. Maybe there is more graffiti now, but it isn't anything new. I know that Bloomberg and Ray Kelly combined some graffiti task forces a few years back, but what other changes were made that you think has led to increased graffiti?

Anonymous said...

My next door neighbor......
who has a legal target/premises pistol permit.....
called the local precinct
to tell them that it looked like someone was trying
to burglarize him.

The cops responded with indifference.

He politely told them
that he would attend to the matter himself
with his 38 special caliber revolver.

The police came immediately!

Anonymous said...

How sad that you are hung up on the word "shit". Typical Bloomberg administration response: try to refocus the attention on something completely irrelevant.

Anonymous said...

"If you want the people who can make a difference to take you seriously"

HA HA HA HA We're from QUEENS. Take a look around the borough. No one takes us seriously! Especially not those of us who kiss up to the very clubhouse that is tweeding us.

Anonymous said...

Just think how many crimes aren't being reported because of the indifference of police officers who will run home to Nassau after their shift is over and tell their families what animals live here.

Anonymous said...

"Back then, you pretty much expected your car to get stolen every so often, and you always heard about someone you knew getting mugged or robbed periodically. Murders are going to come in at under 500 this year, compared to over 2200 per year back in the early 90s, car thefts are down about 90% from back then, and I don't think there are many murders or car thefts out there that are going unreported."

I guess we should be grateful that he didn't kill her or steal her car.
Since when did groping become a simple quality of life issue?
Women don't seem to count for much, and if you will accept that you will accept anything. No manner of crime against another person should ever become acceptable.

I grew up in Queens and lived there in the 50's and 60's (S. Ozone Park) and believe me I sympathize with the anger and frustration over what has taken place there in recent years.
Three years ago I was traveling on Rust Street and I gazed upon the church on the hill and thought I had gone back in time. What a beautiful sight.
Now it has been trashed by outside interests who don't care a wit about it's beauty, or that the community wanted to preserve it and it's link to the past. Greedy bastards.
Queens has always been the neighborhood of the working man, and always suffered from neglect (remember Lindsay's snowstorm).
Rather than represent us, our elected officials hold us in contempt.
Fight the good fight! You deserve better than this. St. Saviour's is the rallying cry.

Anonymous said...

I told the graffiti officer at my precinct about a really nasty bunch of tags... called back a couple of days later and he said he visited the site and saw none. It hadn't been cleaned and was very obvious.

Anonymous said...

Yeah so the graffiti "records" that the cops keep aren't very accurate.

Anonymous said...

Apparently, quality of life in this city is gauged by phony statistics.

georgetheatheist said...

Re Crapper's "foul" language: fret no longer, dear readers, I have given him the penance of saying 3 rosaries and no meat this Friday - Sincerely, Father George

Anonymous said...

Statistics are a typical bureaucrat's answer. Why? Because they lie.

georgetheatheist said...

(And you can all now go fuck yourselves. Amen.)

Anonymous said...

It stands to reason that if undocumented people are underreported, then the crimes they commit and have committed against them are likely to be too...

Don't you think an illegal immigrant with no family and no ties to this country can be murdered with no one noticing?

Anonymous said...

"Now it has been trashed by outside interests who don't care a wit about it's beauty, or that the community wanted to preserve it and it's link to the past. Greedy bastards."

There are some inside interests too. Maspeth Federal Savings Bank and the local councilman come to mind.

Anonymous said...

I have to laugh at the offended soul. Serious people have been complaining about these problems for years at civic meetings and community board meetings and nothing has been done about it. But Crappy is going to ruin the chances of the Bloomberg administration cleaning its act up because the word "shit" was typed in a comment. Stay away from the rum balls, sir.

Anonymous said...

We got a gang of thugs hanging around the Broadway Flushing LIRR station (one vandal "writes OFC")
cleared away PDQ because one local resident
works for the DA's office and his father is a judge!

It might have been another story otherwise.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, maybe it's me, but, how did these comments come to be about graffiti and undocumented immigrants? I understand that they fall under "quality of life" but is no one else disturbed by the fact that this young lady was violated, yelled at him for 3 trian stops, and NO ONE on that train did anything (detain the guy, take pictures of him?) to help her? It's disgusting. I hope that never happens to any of those people's mothers, sisters, daughters, or wives.

parnell said...

oh come on, the mayor himself is facing civil suits for sexually harassing women, and commanding employees to abort fetuses that might make them less attractive to him. Why would any sane person think his administration would take an interest in this???

Anonymous said...

That's what a hat pin is for girl.

Pierce his testicle and you'll be sure to get a rise
out of him...er...uh....or...eliminate the one he's got !

No acupuncture license needed.

Anonymous said...

just saw a Buster Keaton short called "The Goat," that you might appreciate. When he says Amen at the diner table he accidentally dips his head into a bowl of soup.
-ken

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
"That's what a hat pin is for girl.

Pierce his testicle and you'll be sure to get a rise
out of him...er...uh....or...eliminate the one he's got !"

Another tactic: stomp your heel onto the guy's instep - real hard, several times. Like a jackhammer. The procedure will help in the identification process.

Anonymous said...

Crime is NOT down. NYC is a lot more dangerous today than it was 10years ago.

All of the crime statistics that are reported nowadays are fudged.

Read the other comments in regards to cops not taking reports, etc. No report = no crime... plain and simple.

Anonymous said...

people here may be hesitant to directly discuss this issue because it's hard to criticize cops due to the inherent respect we all have for them, bordering on hero worship in some instances.

We also fear cops to a degree, knowing that if we say something they don't like they always have the power to take vengeance by coming around and issuing us tickets for some minor infraction or even ignoring our requests for help in the event of a stickup!

Sure it's unlikely they'd ever stoop to such steps but you still can't help entertaining the notion in the back of your mind. So even though these cops were clearly in the wrong, in the case of this Hollaback girl, and deserve critique, condemnation, and a cuss word or two, we'll wisely keep quiet on the issue, dodging it instead by talking about unrelated topics like graffiti.

Are we to be blamed?

Now then, as you were saying, graffiti is indeed a scourge, which may well have increased lately, and it is indeed a nuisance, as well as a real quality of life concern ...

Anonymous said...

I don't see much respect for police officers in the comments on this blog. Shameful.

Anonymous said...

The experiences recounted here don't say much for the respect that police officers show toward those they serve now do they?

Queens Crapper said...

Here's what cops are busy doing:

More Harassment Courtesy of the N.Y.P.D.

Anonymous said...

If Johnny Law can't be depended upon
(except to write parking tickets)
then John Q. Public has to take care of himself
by whatever means necessary....
especially if it's a matter of life or death.

Anonymous said...

Don't you think an illegal immigrant with no family and no ties to this country can be murdered with no one noticing?

Response: Don't you think if a loved one were raped, beaten and killed by an undocumented illegal whom vanishes after the fact, you have no means of identifing the suspect via DNA or finger prints to locate or find the suspect at all? Are you illegal?