Our reporters talk to Brooklyn residents about their reactions following a series of sexual assaults. Find all our coverage here.
I’m at a former church that now serves as an early childhood center for low-income families in Sunset Park. It’s a beautiful space; light falls onto the wooden floors through stained-glass windows, and dolls sporting mood sweaters line the benches.
Millie Acevedo is a teacher at the the United Methodist Christ Church Head Start at Seventh Avenue and 45th Street in Sunset Park. “It’s a scary thing. I think it’s a gang thing,” she says about the rise in sexual attacks. She lives in Staten Island, and usually arrives at the center by 6:30 a.m. when it’s still dark outside.
“I try to walk in blocks. If I come up 45th I’ll walk down 47th,” she says. Since May, when the number of sexual assaults in Sunset Park began rising, Acevedo says she has become distrustful of people. “If you ask me for the time, I will ignore you. Some call it conceited, I call it cautious.”
The center has been trying to make people aware of the attacks and how to respond. “We just tell people to be very aware of their surroundings,” she says, adding that the center “gives out fliers for self-defense classes.”
And what do these classes teach?
“How to react if you’re attacked, where to kick him where it hurts,” she says.
Katrina Crum, the center’s educational director, says the problem is the lack of a police patrol. “In the summertime, I saw policemen all around, they used to be around the trains, too. Now they’re all standing cluttered together on Fifth Avenue and at their command station. I’m the last one to leave, and I try my best to be out of here by 6:30 p.m.”
She adds that the self-defense workshops are useful but not without problems. “There’s so many different cultures here. We have the Chinese and the Polish and the Russian Jews,” she says. “If the workshops had people who could speak their language, they can show how important this issue is. We’re just a little agency.”
I ask Acevedo if the children are told anything about the assaults. She smiles and says “they’re four. They’re too young. The world is perfect for them.”
– Hiten Samtani
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