Now for some of the bad side of the city (and btw, I doo believe there are gangs in Ithaca - not like the Bloods & Crips, but bad guys just the same)
Experts see gang-like behavior in Fall Creek assaults
By Raymond Drumsta
Journal Staff
ITHACA — The Fall Creek assaults on Halloween and a similar attack over the summer bear the markings of street-gang behavior, according to gang experts who have reviewed case information released by the Ithaca Police.
John Klofas, a professor of criminal justice at Rochester Institute of Technology who has studied gang behavior, said the attacks are gang-related.
“These guys are assaulting and robbing people,” Klofas said. “That's the definition of a street gang.”
Klofas, who has written extensively about gangs and recently helped garner a $2.5 million federal grant to help fight gang-related crime in Rochester, speculated the attacks may have been some sort of gang initiation, though it isn't any type he's seen before. But whether it was gang initiation or not is irrelevant.
“This is gang behavior,” he said. “It has to be shut down. You have innocent people on the street being beaten. They could hurt someone very badly with that behavior.”
Summer attack
The victim of the attack over the summer has come forward, meanwhile, and described the assault and robbery he suffered as determined, vicious and well-organized.
It was just after midnight on July 28, when the victim — a man in his early thirties who moved to Ithaca five years ago — was attacked. He was walking east on Court Street, he said, approaching a group of four to five black males and a black female “in the middle of street, not going anywhere.”
“They seemed to take notice of me, which made alarm bells go off in my head,” he said.
His fears faded, however, when the group parted to let him by, he said. At that point, he removed his glasses to wipe the rain off them, and one of the youths — about 15 years old, and one of the younger ones in the group — asked him for the time, he said.
As he glanced down at his cell phone for the time, he saw the 15-year old draw back to hit him. That's when the attack began in earnest, with the youths surrounding him and punching him from all sides, the victim said.
“Clearly the timing was coordinated,” the victim said. “I was hit three to four times before I had a chance to hit back. It was pretty effective.”
He tried to fight back, he added, and even locked arms with one attacker, but was forced to cover his head in self-defense.
“I was knocked to the ground, and they continued to punch and kick me while I was on the ground,” he said.
The attack subsided, and something occurred that further confirmed that the attack was organized, the victim said.
“I noticed their feet had stopped,” he said. “They seemed to pause, and I heard someone say, ‘get the wallet.' The people who were beating me were trying to get me on the ground. The person who said to get the wallet seemed to be directing the attack.”
They didn't demand the wallet initially, and the robbery seemed like an afterthought, ordered by someone in the background, he recalled.
He characterized the attack as an ambush, and said the robbery order was the only thing uttered during it, besides the request for the time, which seemed to initiate the attack.
“They weren't yelling at me or talking to each other, which makes me think it was pretty planned out.”
With his lips and cheek swollen and bloody, his right eye nearly swollen shut, his glasses broken and his leg and elbow bruised, the man gave up his wallet, which held his credit cards and about $100. His assailants fled west on West Court Street, and a witness to the assault saw them running north on North Plain Street.
Police found most of the stolen items nearby and two of the credit cards on the lip of a storm drain at Fourth and Madison Streets. The victim was treated at Cayuga Medical Center.
“When I read about what happed on Halloween, it seemed like the same kind of incident, and maybe the same suspects,” the victim said.
“The Halloween incidents brought it all back to the forefront. What might have been a single, hot-summer night incident clearly is not.”
Similar attacks
The Fall Creek attacks occurred while trick or treaters were making the rounds. In four separate incidents — between 8 and 8:46 p.m. — a group reported to police as black youths, mostly male, approached individual victims and punched them in the face or head, police said.
The reported number of assailants in each assault ranged from five to 10. In some incidents, the assailants were described as wearing dark hooded sweatshirts. While most of the victims declined medical attention, all suffered minor head injuries.
In the last attack on Halloween — which seems identical to the July assault — a group of approximately 10 black, male teenagers approached a 17-year-old male in the 200 block of Marshall Street about 8:46 p.m. One of the teens, described as 5-foot-10 with a light complexion and slim build, approached the victim, asked the time, and punched him in the face three times.
As in the July assault, other suspects in the group joined in, knocking the victim to the ground. The victim suffered bruises to the face, and his watch and cell phone were taken. The assailants fled on foot in an unknown direction.
The four incidents are related, or the suspects in some or all of the attacks may be the same people, the Ithaca Police Department said.
Deputy Ithaca Police Chief John Barber said it is not known whether the attacks were gang-related or racially motivated. Police would not disclose races of the victims.
RIT professor Klofas described the incidents as “swarm-style” robberies and assaults. Gang behavior is not necessarily organized or linked to national gangs, he said.
“It could be kids growing up together and then committing crimes together, he said.
Though a more detailed investigation is required, the serial nature of the attacks seem to point toward gang behavior, said Moses Robinson, the president of the Western New York chapter of the East Coast Gangs Association, who teaches law-enforcement officers about criminal street gangs.
“When you see five or more people attacking one person, that's a gang,” he said. On the other hand, he added, impulsive, violent group behavior isn't unprecedented.
Robinson encourages people to see gangs as something with roots in child-development behavior.
For example, all children join and form groups and want to be part of a winning team, he said. So local youths may be imitating national gangs such as the Bloods and Crips, Robinson said — a phenomenon which is occurring nationwide.
That's why the use of national gang symbols does not necessarily indicate a link to those gangs, Robinson said. Called tagging, Crips and Bloods symbols have been seen painted in graffiti around Ithaca, police said.
The July and Halloween attacks could have been a form of gang initiation, Robinson speculated.
“It sounds like an initiation,” he said. “Gang initiation is all about showing strength, courage and loyalty.”
Another definition
“Just because people — as a group — decide to commit a crime, does not make them a gang,” said acting Ithaca Police Chief Ed Vallely. “Gangs are typically involved in schemes to raise money, sometimes illegally. That's more of a gang than a group of individuals who get together and may or may not commit crimes. I don't believe we have gangs in Ithaca, by that definition.”
Gangs, he said, are organized and have leaders and command staff.
“That does not appear to be the case this time,” he said, referring to the attacks. “These individuals were together when they committed this crime. It's possible for people, as a group, to act spontaneously.”
The Fall Creek attacks are similar to the July attack, he added, but they don't seem to be related to any other crime in the city.
Like Robinson, Vallely thinks the gang graffiti in Ithaca may be people imitating national gangs.
“The symbols of these gangs are so available in pop culture, that any individual with a can of spray paint could imitate them,” he said.
Nonetheless, the investigation into the attacks is ongoing, he said. There have been developments in the case, he added, but would not disclose details.
“We anticipate solving it,” Vallely said. “When we do, we'll be able to answer these questions.”
A changed perspective
The victim of the July attack still finds it upsetting to talk about — though not as upsetting as dealing with his insurance company, he said jokingly.
He called the Ithaca Police when he read about the Fall Creek attacks, he added, and an investigator told him they also noted the similarities.
“The police seemed to be surprised that this would happen in Ithaca,” the victim said. “They said it's rare in Ithaca for an assault victim not to know their attacker.”
His friends and family were shocked when they heard about the attack on him, he said.
“My family worries more about my sister, who lives in New York City,” he said.
Since he grew up in the country, in a place without sidewalks, walking was part of his life, he said. He's had to drive everywhere in other places he's lived, and he used to tell people that he liked Ithaca because he could walk everywhere, he said.
The attack changed his life, the victim said.
“I used to walk around town all hours of the night without a second thought,” he said. “After having to drive everywhere, it was nice to park the car in the driveway and not have to use it. That's changed. I don't feel comfortable walking every where I need to go anymore.”
rdrumsta@ithacajournal.com
Originally published November 24, 2007
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Here's a link to the comments section of this article from the "enlightened" citizens of Ithaca:
http://forums.theithacajournal.com/v...ic.php?t=10857
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