Sunday, April 23, 1989
DAILY NEWS
5.
HORROR IN CENTRAL PARK
Wolves
hunted
as cops
combed
By PATRICE O'SHAUGHNESSEY
and DON SINGLETON
Daily News Staff Writers
It was 10 p.m. Wednesday
when the night in Central
Park turned the corner from
wild, random violence to the
brutal horror that left the cily
revulsed.
They were a gang, out for a
night of "wilding."
They had beaten people,
with fists and a 12-inch
length of lead pipe wrapped
in black tape. Now, they were
ready for more.
"Let's go get ourselves a
woman," one of the leaders of
the pack said.
What follows, based on in-
terviews with police and wit-
nesses, is an account of what
happened.
***
At 8:30 p.m. the sky was
cloudless, the temperature 56
degrees. About 17 boys gath-
ered at 117th St. and Madison
Ave. Some were as young as
12, some as old as 17.
A girlfriend of one of the
boys said that Yusef Salaam,
who was later arrested, was
carrying both a knife and a
12-inch length of lead pipe in
his pocket - a pip
intended to use in a fight that
never came off.
"Let's go wilding." one boy
said.
"Let's go get joggers and
steal bikes," another said.
They were off toward Fifth
Ave, and the park.
At the northeast corner of
the park, they met a group of
16 boys their own ages.
Antron McCray, 15, of W.
111th St., exulting about the
large number of boys in the
group, counted heads. "It was
like, Lookit, there's so many
of us! Let's go kick ass," one
detective said.
he had
Man spared
At 8:50 p.m., near the Con-
servatory Gardens at 105th
St. and the East Drive, they
spotted a Hispanic man walk-
ing alone. He was spared
"I know him, leave him
alone," one boy hollered, and
the pack moved on.
Five minutes later, at 8:55,
they found an elderly His-
panic man, alone and home-
less, carrying a sandwich and
a beer in a paper bag at the
104th St. level of the East
Drive. The boys grabbed the
bag, roughed the man up and
poured beer over his head.
At 9 p.m., a police vehicie
cruised along on patrol along
the East Drive. The boys
dropped to the ground until St
had passed, then split into at
See GANG Page 34
