Moments: Human Sacrifice In a Brooklyn Park

“This is a sacrifice!” yelled one of the teenage girls. She and her friends stood in a circle around a teenage boy. They yelled and cursed at him. They punched him and pulled his hair. The boy looked confused, not sure how to fight back.

“Are you bleeding?” screamed another girl. In the frenzy it was unclear if she was asking a friend or the tormented boy.

The park, normally a tranquil place that families enjoy, hasn’t been quiet for some time now.

An hour earlier, the girls and the boy had looked like kids messing around but the girls were tightly huddled in a pack and seemed to be united in one thing — their disgust with the boy. His black doo rag was flickering in the wind as he swaggered over to them.

Their shouts soon became audible.

“I wanna slap your friends,” one of the girls shouted. “Tomorrow! Bring him, it could be war right here.”

The girls pushed and shoved the boy as they led him to the back of the park. The boy and one of the girls started grappling with each other. They pulled each other down while another girl took out her phone to film. They were hitting each other now with force.

“Stop fucking punching,” someone shouted at the boy. He tore himself away and stumbled. One girl — who was clearly their leader — picked up a trash can and launched it as the boy stumbled away. It barely missed him and hit the ground with a loud, metallic bang. Another girl chased the boy down, landing two or three blows to his back.

The boy sat down and began to protest. The girls kept pummeling him. They shoved him against a statue. Finally, he ran away, panting, sweating. His swagger was gone, as was his do-rag. He looked dazed.

A man sat nearby watching the scene unfold. He said and did nothing. One of the girls broke from the pack. She walked over to the man, smiled and hugged him.