Cops from the 61st Precinct are preparing for their biggest fight yet — a Gerritsen Beach Halloween tradition that shows the tight-knit community’s uglier side.
Still reeling from the Gerritsen Beach “bombing raids” held this past Halloween — when local youths lobbed eggs, potatoes and rocks at cars, busses and pedestrians up and down Gerritsen Avenue — cops said they’ve already taken steps to stop the mischief expected on Oct. 31, 2011.
“We’re looking ahead at next year,” Deputy Inspector George Mastrokostas told members of the 61st Precinct Community Council last week. “We’re already enlisting the help of the community.”
But Mastrokostas may have a long road ahead of him. Despite the outrage expressed by Gerritsen Beach residents over the egg attacks — which were highlighted on the blog gerritsenbeach.net — police said residents did very little to help them investigate and catch the hoodlums.
Even those who came to the 61st Precinct station house to complain refused to file a report, which would have sparked an investigation, and even though he complained about the attacks, one annoyed resident said he didn’t want to put his name to a report because he didn’t want to “air Gerritsen Beach’s laundry,” explained Sergeant Kerry Carty, the 61st Precinct’s community affairs officer.
At a recent Gerritsen Beach Property Owner’s Association meeting, many adults claimed that they, too, threw eggs and shaving cream on Halloween when they were children.
Mastrokostas claims he wants to change that tradition and he’s reaching out to neighborhood leaders to do so.
“It’s all neighborhood kids [committing the bombing raids],” Mastrokostas said. “We want to take a better hold of the situation, but the first line of defense is the community.”
George Broadhead, the president of the Gerritsen Beach Property Owners Association, said he’s reached out to a handful of parents about the issues as well.
“We want to talk to them about our concerns for next Halloween, so they can express those concerns to their children,” he said.
Yet their pleas for a peaceful holiday may already have fallen on deaf ears. According to gerritsenbeach.net, local teens seem to be extending their Halloween mischief to Thanksgiving.
Just this past weekend, local kids were seen “throwing rocks at people, buses and cars again from Seba Avenue Park,” the blog noted.
“[Kids] were throwing rocks at the bus shelter while a young man was sitting there waiting for the bus with his girlfriend,” recounted an unnamed resident in the blog post. “If it would have broke, [it] could have killed one of them.”
Cops could not confirm these allegations by Tuesday night.
“I was here all weekend, and nothing like that was reported,” said one police source.
