A Menacing Ritual Is Called Common in New York Pools - Black Teens causing mayhem & havoc
They call it "the whirlpool," and pool employees and regular swimmers say it has become a common, if malevolent, ritual of these sweltering summer days at some of New York City's municipal pools.
Groups of teen-age boys lock arms and shoulders and move in circles through the expanse of blue, churning the cool, chlorinated water, chanting rap lyrics and fondling girls at will.
Usually, the regulars say, the ritual has its unarticulated bounds: Recognizing whirlpools before they can be surrounded, girls who don't want to participate generally get out of the pool or stand by their boyfriends for protection. The contact is usually limited to splashing and dunking.
But on Monday, with a holiday crowd of about 1,300 people at the Crotona Pool in the South Bronx, the whirlpool spun out of control, witnesses and the police said. As the circle swarmed around a 14-year-old girl, they say, several boys ripped off her bathing suit top and one of them inserted his finger in her vagina. Though the usual complement of seven lifeguards and a lieutenant was on hand, they reacted late, swimmers said. The girl was rescued by her mother.
Yesterday, the police said they were looking for two to four suspects, in addition to a 17-year-old boy arrested Monday at the scene. The city's Parks Commissioner, Betsy Gotbaum, said she would increase the number of police officers at Crotona and was talking to the police about increasing the number of officers at the 12 other large pools.
And as hundreds of people packed the Crotona pool on another oppressive day, teen-agers, and especially teen-age girls, talked about the whirlpool, about what happened Monday and about how it all reflected a too-common fact in the lives of boys and girls.
"When guys see a girl in a bathing suit, they just see her as being naked," said Sabrina Diaz, a 14-year-old girl who was in the pool Monday during the attack. "They don't have any respect for girls."
Whirlpools, in some form, have long been a feature of inner-city swimming pools, said swimmers and supervisors at several other city pools.
"It's something you see at any public pool in the inner city," said Leighton Wynter, a 21-year-old counselor at Seneca House in the Bronx who often swims at city pools. "It is sort of an organized chaos."
A Parks Department employee who works at the Jackie Robinson pool on 146th Street in Harlem said that she has seen many whirlpools. "They dunk the girls, but the lifeguards try to stop it when they see it," the employee said. "It's something that's not supposed to be done."
Employees at two other pools, one in Brooklyn and one in the Bronx, said they, too, had seen whirlpooling. But they did not give their names and did not give details.
At a poolside news conference, Ms. Gotbaum dismissed suggestions that anything more than rough pool play was at the root of Monday's attack. Telephone calls to her home and office to ask her about the whirlpools went unanswered.
"What I think happened yesterday was that some ordinary horseplay got out of hand," she said at her news conference yesterday at Crotona. "As a result of that, we will be extremely vigilant." Looking for Other Suspects
What this means so far is that four uniformed police officers instead of one will patrol the 57-year-old Crotona Pool, one of the city's largest public pools, in addition to seven lifeguards, one lieutenant, and several park enforcement officers, said Edward Norris, assistant commissioner for citywide services for the parks department.
Although the parks department has suffered past budget cuts, like many city agencies, its complement of security officers has been unaffected for the last two years, Mr. Norris said. Before Monday's attack, Crotona Pool had not been known to have "any signifcant problems," he added.
Yesterday, the police said they were continuing their investigation of the attack and were looking for two to four teen-age boys believed to be linked to the incident. Monday, Philip Munoz, 17, of Belmont Avenue in the Bronx, was arrested and charged with assaulting the girl, including inserting his finger in her vagina.
But many of the frolicking teen-agers enjoying the pool's million gallons of water yesterday, were skeptical abont the announced safety changes. As Commissioner Gotbaum spoke to reporters, several yelled from the pool, "It's too late, now," and in Spanish, "Lies, lies, lies." Up to 50 in 'Whirlpool'
Over the din, Ms. Gotbaum said, "We want to assure people that our pools are very, very safe."
She said abusive behavior in the city's pools would not be tolerated.
The whirlpools begin as harmless fun, said Mr. Wynter, the Seneca House counselor. Swimmers gather and move in a circle creating a vortex, a poor man's wave machine, he said. But often, people grow tired of simply churning the waters.
"It turns into a free-for-all, with people pushing and grabbing people and with people getting sucked into the middle," said Mr. Wynter, who added that he participated in whirlpools as a teen-ager. In his day, however, sexually abusing women was not part of the fun, he said.
On Monday, witnesses said, up to 50 teen-age boys formed a whirlpool and began menacing every unprotected girl in a floating posse for nearly two hours. As they moved through the water, picking up members, they chanted, "Whoomp! There it is!" -- a line from a popular rap song that toasts women's sexual anatomy.
"They were feeling and touching them up," recalled Hipolito Castro, 19, who was swiming with his brother, Eric Castro, at the time. A Growing Hostility
And they can be an intimidating force of nature to stop, said one of the pool's lifeguards who agreed to be interviewed if he was identified only as Walt. "We do our best," he said. "But we don't just jump in like that."
He said the number of boys in the whirlpool was much greater than the seven lifeguards on duty Monday. "We are trained to save lives but not to put our life in danger," he said.
Many pool regulars, boys and girls, suggested that whirlpools were symptomatic of a growing sexual hostility between young boys and girls.
"There is definitely misogyny on the rise," said Mr. Wynter, who is studying history and literature at Fordham Unviversity. "From the culture comes the music, and from that comes the T-shirts and slogans and cants that influence how young people think."
Hipolito Castro agreed. He said many teen-age boys are becoming sexually active younger and have little understanding about how to express their sexuality appropriately. "Sex is all they think about," he said. Trying to Dodge Trouble
Veterans of the Crotona Pool, Jeanne Alciador, 11, and Makeda Green, 12, said anyone who swims regularly there should know about whirlpools and their rules.
Both were at the pool when the girl was attacked, and both said they left the water when they saw trouble coming their way. "All the girls were getting out," Jeanne said.
Leslie Alvira, 16, did not believe anything would really change at Crotona. "I would never come here by myself," she said as she adjusted her two-piece bathing suit. "I come with my boyfriend."
She said the pool has become dangerous to young women because boys have grown increasingly bold in treating them as "sexual objects."
"All boys are dogs," said Ms. Alvira, who saw Monday's attack.
"A lot of people were asking, were screaming, asking for help, but nobody came," she recalled.
Looking over the pool's concrete apron, Ms. Alvira watched several police officers standing guard over the afternoon's peace.
"In a couple of days, they ain't going to be here," she said. "After everybody stops talking about this, the cops will be gone."
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Detective Shavedlongcock:
Ripping the bathing suits off 14 year old girls, acting like assholes and taking over the public pools.... IT NEVER ENDS....
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