Neighborhoods Working Hard To Outdo One Another

Which is more disturbing — a brazen hate crime in Flushing or a brazen hate crime in Gerritsen Beach which no one will talk about to the police? Perhaps the latter:

Just after 9 p.m. on June 26, four black teenagers from distant neighborhoods got lost and were biking through Gerritsen Beach’s streets, the police said, when a raucous band of white youths began chasing and threatening them, all the while shouting racist remarks. Two of the teenagers escaped, while one hid under a bush, sobbing, and a fourth, Winston Johnson, 16, was thrown off his bicycle and beaten, according to the police.

Detectives were deployed from the Hate Crimes Task Force. Neighbors were canvassed, a roadblock was set up and people were stopped and questioned. In the weeks since, eight people, ages 12 to 21, have been arrested, and most of them have been charged with hate crimes.

Parents and residents in Gerritsen Beach have been aghast and furious, insisting that their youths and young men were unjustly singled out.

But the police tell a different story. They say the people of Gerritsen Beach have turned inward and wrapped themselves in silence. Deputy Inspector Michael J. Osgood, commanding officer of the Hate Crimes Task Force, said residents of areas where other racially charged episodes occurred — in Howard Beach, Queens; Mill Basin, Brooklyn; and Great Kills, Staten Island — had readily provided the investigators with useful tips.

But the more people in Gerritsen Beach are pressed for information, Inspector Osgood said, the more they shut down.

“The people in the community are refusing to speak to the N.Y.P.D.,” Inspector Osgood said. “We’ve never had this happen before in the city of New York.”

When asked, many people in Gerritsen Beach insisted they did not hear or see anything on the night of June 26.