Cocaine, piss and noise: a popular park in New York City has turned into a hangout protected by activists

For more than a month, Washington Square Park in New York has been the site of a battle between police and lawbreakers at night. Now activists have joined the conflict, blaming the police for the brutality and defending the rights of drug addicts living in the park. The publication told about the latest events in the park New York Post.

The conflict is fueled by numerous drug addicts calling the park and the surrounding streets home, and the police are imposing curfews to protect the area from noisy parties and fights that do not stop until the morning. Activists believe that the police are too cruel to them, and the problems of these people need to be addressed differently.

A New York Post journalist went to study the life of the park to understand the problem. Next - his story in the first person.

Damon (not his real name) was my guide to the new world of Washington Square Park - the world of drug addicts.

"I apologize! I apologize!" - he stopped my aimless wandering in the park, asked for a cigarette and somehow guessed that I was a reporter. The latter showed his quite strong intuition, since I did not do anything particularly journalistic.

On the subject: How Washington Square Park went from iconic landmark to epicenter of violence and chaos

Damon promised to introduce me to everyone who really matters, on the condition that we first go to 7-Eleven to buy beer and a pack of Newports cigarettes for him. He also bummed me $ 40 under the threat of "I won't let you go." I felt less stupid when I thought of it as a fee to my assistant.

"Welcome to Hell's Kitchen!" He began.

“This is not Hell's Kitchen,” I replied (the Hell's Kitchen urban area is far from the park).

"Well, in any case, it's a metaphor," retorted the guide.

Most of Damon's acquaintances have been unsuccessful. “Nando” told us that the confrontation between the people of the park and the community around him dates back to rumors of mass “f * cking,” although before he could finish his speech, Damon stepped in to insist that “there was no x * suck, bastard! " Soon after, Damon accused three white teenagers in Jordan suits of "cultural misappropriation."

After we bought beer and cigarettes, there was a small altercation (completely instigated by Damon) with the South Asian clerks of 7-Eleven - my guide needed drugs and was on edge. By this point, we have passed dozens of drug addicts, either in various states of catatonia, or not inclined to share magic crystals with Damon. Eventually, however, we ended up with a larger group of men and women smoking crackers around a squalid table on a well-lit stretch of Sixth Avenue. They were ready to sell.

Among them was a woman who cared so much about one of the catatonic patients that I assumed she was a social worker - before I noticed that she herself was quite active on the drug. Then she swept the corner of the sidewalk with a broom and spread out a blanket for sleeping. After Damon smoked his second little crystal, we headed back to the park.

"How does it feel when you smoke for the first time?" I asked Damon.

“It's like one is too much and a thousand is never enough,” he replied.

The scene as a whole looked even more disgusting because of the usual indifference of the wealthy passing by. This is a common situation. But part of me wanted to grab them and shout: how can you accept all this? Can't you see people slowly dying at your doorstep?

In noble terms, I think that the inhabitants of the park are fueled by the fire of morality. The activists defending their rights seem to rely on the same ideas. Something is fundamentally wrong with urban America. She is ill. Nobody cares about anything. This should hurt the conscience of young people, the conscience of any person.

However, the obsession of these activists and human rights defenders with police violence rather than drug abuse serves to further confuse the source of the problem and to a much deeper crisis. Cops are dealing with the last phase of a social crisis, which means that the police are more likely to interact with people like Damon, and therefore the police do use force more often than ordinary people. But this is not because the cops are evil, but because they have to deal with the extreme manifestations of social crisis.

And defenders of the rights of park residents do not even try to see the root of the problem. The long-term solution is restoring a sensible and genuine policy of solidarity, recognizing that some of our fellow citizens need additional help, help they cannot always accept or appreciate without some degree of coercion and, yes, adequate funding.