Dispatches from Hasidica: Carjacking edition
When your neighborhood has seen enough slashings, stabbings and poisoned machete attacks to fill a B horror movie, a police blockade around the corner from your house is something you notice.
Which is why I biked towards the cop cars on my way home down Wythe avenue tonight. Turns out there was a car jacking, but they caught the guy, which in the enclave of super religious Hasidic families I live near means a five alarm quarantine of the area and a conference with all the local heads of households.
I saw for the first time Hasidic policemen, some in normal uniform and some in those special windbreaker jackets like the FBI, DEA or bomb squad wears in movies, which made me wonder if they were working undercover like that Melanie Griffith movie from the 90’s. I also saw what I can only assume were members of the super secret private armed guard that patrols the neighborhood with machine guns and minivans. These are people whose existence until tonight I’d actually considered an urban legend, best used to freak out newcomers to the neighborhood. But there they were, amidst the mothers on balconies clutching their babies, the crowd of patriarchs gathered around the scene of the crime in their black hats and long coats, standing in the spotlights of about six parked minivans’ headlights while their young sons lurked behind them with a mixture of adolescent bravado and fear.
But the best part was the cop who I encountered at the first blockade.
“What happened?” I asked, thinking of shootouts, dead bodies and guns, blood, knives and the anxiety-ridden horror show that would be my walk home for the next two weeks.
“Oh, attempted car robbery,” the cop sighed. “Some guy tried to jack a car and got caught, and now they’re taking prints.”
“But is it safe?” I asked, eying the five patrol cars and crowd of officers that lay ahead.
“Lady,” he said, looking up from his book right at me “there are about fifty cops down the block. This is the safest damn place in Brooklyn.”
