All They Did was Rob White Women, Grope Them, Rip Their Clothes Off, and Manually Rape Them; What’s the Big Deal? (Central Park II, Part Two)

By Nicholas Stix
June 22, 2000

Central Park II, Part Two

(This isn’t about the brutal, racist, April 19, 1989 black and Hispanic mob attacks and robberies of whites, and rape of a white woman in Central Park; it’s about the brutal, racist, June 11, 2000 black and Hispanic mob attacks, robberies and rapes of white women in Central Park.)

At this point, the story is that the men went on a wilding spree from about 2:00 p.m. until 6:30 or so, in broad daylight, in a park full of tens of thousands of visitors, with a thousand or so police officers within shouting distance (4,000 of New York's Finest, or ten percent of the entire department, were on hand for that day's Puerto Rican Day Parade). The perpetrators sprayed women with water, before proceeding to rob them, rip their clothes off of their bodies, grope their genitalia, and in several cases, manually rape them (forcing their fingers into unwilling women's vaginas). In the case of a French couple visiting the city, the mob held down the husband, who could see half-a-dozen members strip his wife naked, and then take turns jamming their fingers into her.

Immediately after the first arrests on Sunday, of Tremayne Bain and David Rowe, we heard Bain and Rowe's families and friends protest that it couldn't be them. We have since heard many such protests.

Some Hispanic leaders -- led by Bronx Borough President Fernando "Freddy" Ferrer -- were quick to condemn the attacks, and to call on all New Yorkers, but especially Hispanic New Yorkers, to cooperate with the police to help bring the perpetrators to justice.

Not surprisingly, initially no black leaders made similar pronouncements. Then, five days after the attacks, on June 17, the Rev. Al Sharpton, seeing which way the winds were blowing, denounced the attacks, and announced that he would be holding men-only teach-ins on the proper respect for the female of the species. However, neither Sharpton, who on June 13 announced a dubious lawsuit, nor any other black leader, ever called on "the community" to help bring the malefactors to justice.

Why, you might ask, should black leaders make such pronouncements? Because the attacks had a clearly racial character; they continued a history of racial attacks on white women; and because black leaders are well aware of the tradition among many blacks (including perhaps a majority of black New Yorkers) of celebrating attacks on white women, they reflected on all black New Yorkers.