National Affairs: Senseless

U.S. crime reporters usually have cliches to explain everything—or almost everything.

On a muggy night last week, two detectives walked out of their precinct station across from Louis Sobel Park in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. One of the plainclothesmen had worked the district for 31 years. He remembered when it was a “real swell” neighborhood. Now it is seedy. Not a slum, not by any definition the worst part of New York, but a down-at-heels place where respectable people, said the policeman, are not safe outdoors at night.

One of the cases on which the police were working was that of an old derelict who had been beaten up by two boys. One of the boys had red hair. The detectives’ patrol was interrupted by two vagrants who ran out of the “park” (actually a paved space with benches) to say that some boys were molesting them. “Has one of them got red hair?” asked one of the cops. “Yes,” they said. The police ran into the park, arrested two teenagers; later, two others were picked up.

The four boys, aged 18, 17, 16 and 15, confessed that in a space of 16 days they had:

¶ Beaten an old man to death.

¶ Beaten several other old men.

¶ Horsewhipped two teen-age girls.

¶ Tied gasoline soaked cotton around a man’s legs and set them afire.

¶ Dragged another man seven blocks and dumped him in the East River, where he drowned.

Poverty? None of the victims were robbed. Neglect? All of the boys came from good homes; they belonged to the old, respected element. Ignorance? All had good school records. Organized crime? None belonged to hoodlum gangs which are the farm clubs of the New York underworld. Three of the four had been summer camp counselors; they liked athletics, played handball, swam at neighborhood pools, liked books and music.

As authorities prepared first-degree murder charges, the four youths were arraigned in court. The leader, Jack Koslow, 18, screamed “Mama! Mama!” But that didn’t explain it. either.