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Oct. 11th, 2022 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. How a Dog's Killing in Prospect Park turned Brooklyn Progressives Against Each Other
Real-world ethics question: In a well-used city park, a man with a history of erratic behavior attacks a dog and its owner with a stick; five days later, the dog dies. The man is Black, the dog owner white; the adjoining neighborhood is famously progressive, often critical of the police and jail system. At the same time, crime is up in the neighborhood, with attacks by emotionally disturbed people around the city putting some residents on edge.
In a dog-loving, progressive enclave, where pushing law and order can clash with calls for social justice, what’s the right thing to do? How do you protect the public without furthering injustice against this man?
Here’s what happened in Park Slope, Brooklyn, when real-life residents faced this situation.
On Aug. 3, Jessica Chrustic, 40, a professional beekeeper, was walking her dog in Prospect Park a little after 6 a.m. when she saw a man rifling through the garbage outside the Picnic House. She had seen the man before — tall, with dreadlocks wrapped in a turban, carrying a long staff and often muttering to himself or cursing — and she usually kept her distance. But this morning there was no room to avoid him.
According to Ms. Chrustic, he started yelling about immigrants taking over the park, then grabbed a bottle of what she later concluded was urine and sloshed it at her and her dog. She tried to run away, but Moose, her 80-pound golden retriever mix, was straining toward the man, trying to protect her.
The man started swinging the stick, she said. One blow hit her, not seriously. Another connected solidly with the dog’s snout. Mary Rowland, 56, a hospital manager who was walking her dog nearby, said she heard the crack of wood on bone and came running toward them, screaming at the man to get away.
Both women called 911, and four patrol cars arrived within a few minutes. But by then, the man was gone. “Moose was bleeding from his mouth and pulling to get home,” Ms. Chrustic said. “My focus was just on caring for him.”
Ms. Chrustic was physically unhurt, but she was shaken. How could this happen in a park where she had never felt unsafe, even walking her dog late at night?
Moose had a shattered tooth that needed to be pulled. Ms. Chrustic posted a description of the encounter on the neighborhood social network Nextdoor, warning others about the man and asking them to report any sightings to the police. Her post elicited more than 280 comments in the coming weeks, mostly expressing sympathy. A total stranger on the forum offered to make her a bracelet with the name Moose on it.
But then the next weekend, Moose developed sepsis from a perforated intestine, caused by a blow Ms. Chrustic had not noticed. After emergency surgery, Moose died.
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Weeks passed, and the man who attacked the dog was still at large. People on Nextdoor, working from Ms. Chrustic’s description, posted that they had seen him in one part of the park or another. Ms. Chrustic, who used to visit the park four times a day, now found it too traumatic to enter unless necessary.
She was especially frustrated that the man, who was well known to people in the park, had not been arrested. “You have a person who is walking around the park who is violent and needs to be removed,” she said. “He’s known by the community. It’s disheartening.”
It was a random incident that might once have been discussed by a group of dog owners. But now it had a forum for a much wider community, with arguments about policing, vigilantism, homelessness, mental health care and progressive obstinacy all feeding into a conversation that evolved beyond the crime that set it off.
“It’s complicated,” said S. Matthew Liao, a professor of bioethics, philosophy and public health at New York University. “It’s a conflict of values, between wanting security and social justice. Everybody has a responsibility in some ways.
What happened is - they got on social media (never a good idea) and discussed it on Next Door Neighbor (which is supposed to be a friendly neighborhood connector site - but ...it's social media).
Nextdoor, which claims an average of 37 million users per week, started in 2010 with the promise of connecting people with their neighbors and neighborhoods. One slogan went, “When neighbors start talking, good things happen.”
One thing they talked about, a lot, was local crime. In Nextdoor forums for communities all over the country, this included suspected crime and sightings of “suspicious” characters, leading early critics to say that what the platform really propagated was white fear. After complaints about racial profiling in 2016, the company instituted diversity training for its operations staff and new protocols for posts about crime and safety. But even in 2020, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez characterized it as an outlet for privileged white people to vent criminal fantasies about their Black and brown neighbors. She tweeted, “nextdoor needs to publicly deal w/ their Karen problem.”
A Nextdoor spokesperson said the company enables users to report any posts that they find offensive or discriminatory, which are then reviewed by volunteer community moderators or staff members. In 2021, only 1 percent of posts were reported as hurtful or harmful; about half of these were removed.
When Ms. Chrustic posted about the attack, the first responses were mostly notes of condolence and support. People with dogs posted that they had seen the man in the same area where she was attacked — why weren’t the police arresting him? Donations poured in to offset her veterinary bills.
But gradually, other voices emerged. A vocal minority asked why Park Slope residents, mostly white, were calling for the police to take down a man who appeared to be homeless and emotionally disturbed. Others called the man a “monster,” a “predator” or a “psychopath.” As on other social media platforms, the most ardent voices made the most noise.
Martin Lofsnes, 52, a dancer and choreographer who moved out of the neighborhood in 2020, came across the conversation while trying to sell some stuff and was appalled by the vitriol directed at an impoverished man, and by what he called “this vigilante attitude.”
He urged people on the thread to put their emotions aside and consider “400 yrs of systematic racism which has prevented black people from building generational wealth through homeownership resulting in the extreme disparity we see today.” Arresting the man, he wrote, would solve none of that.
With all the affluence in Park Slope, he posted, maybe critics should raise money to help the man, not throw him to the lethal jail system, from which he would most likely emerge more dangerous, or not emerge at all.
***
2. I decided to buy expensive orthopedic shoes via Kuru - which has shoes that provide arch support. I'm in desperate need of it - since I have high arches - and the lack of support is giving me lower back pain and pain in the arches.
We'll see if this works.
I may just need inserts.
3. If Americans Need Starter Homes Why are Perfectly Good Ones Being Torn Down
Mother told me about two friends - who had beautiful homes that they'd built torn down by the buyers, with new not so great homes being built in their stead.
Why buy a house just to tear it down? I do not understand human beings.
Animals on the African nature programs make more sense.
4. SNL Blew Through the News with a Game Show
Basically they made fun of all of the current trends that I'm willfully ignoring: game shows, Jeffrey Dahlmer mini-series...and sigh politics.
5. According to Time someone is racing to make a cure for Breast Cancer
So that's good news, I think.
Real-world ethics question: In a well-used city park, a man with a history of erratic behavior attacks a dog and its owner with a stick; five days later, the dog dies. The man is Black, the dog owner white; the adjoining neighborhood is famously progressive, often critical of the police and jail system. At the same time, crime is up in the neighborhood, with attacks by emotionally disturbed people around the city putting some residents on edge.
In a dog-loving, progressive enclave, where pushing law and order can clash with calls for social justice, what’s the right thing to do? How do you protect the public without furthering injustice against this man?
Here’s what happened in Park Slope, Brooklyn, when real-life residents faced this situation.
On Aug. 3, Jessica Chrustic, 40, a professional beekeeper, was walking her dog in Prospect Park a little after 6 a.m. when she saw a man rifling through the garbage outside the Picnic House. She had seen the man before — tall, with dreadlocks wrapped in a turban, carrying a long staff and often muttering to himself or cursing — and she usually kept her distance. But this morning there was no room to avoid him.
According to Ms. Chrustic, he started yelling about immigrants taking over the park, then grabbed a bottle of what she later concluded was urine and sloshed it at her and her dog. She tried to run away, but Moose, her 80-pound golden retriever mix, was straining toward the man, trying to protect her.
The man started swinging the stick, she said. One blow hit her, not seriously. Another connected solidly with the dog’s snout. Mary Rowland, 56, a hospital manager who was walking her dog nearby, said she heard the crack of wood on bone and came running toward them, screaming at the man to get away.
Both women called 911, and four patrol cars arrived within a few minutes. But by then, the man was gone. “Moose was bleeding from his mouth and pulling to get home,” Ms. Chrustic said. “My focus was just on caring for him.”
Ms. Chrustic was physically unhurt, but she was shaken. How could this happen in a park where she had never felt unsafe, even walking her dog late at night?
Moose had a shattered tooth that needed to be pulled. Ms. Chrustic posted a description of the encounter on the neighborhood social network Nextdoor, warning others about the man and asking them to report any sightings to the police. Her post elicited more than 280 comments in the coming weeks, mostly expressing sympathy. A total stranger on the forum offered to make her a bracelet with the name Moose on it.
But then the next weekend, Moose developed sepsis from a perforated intestine, caused by a blow Ms. Chrustic had not noticed. After emergency surgery, Moose died.
Editors’ Picks
If You Want These Birkenstocks, You May Have to Pay Up
From Florence, 3 Fall Day Trips by Train
Why Chimps and Gorillas Form Rainforest Friendships
Continue reading the main story
Weeks passed, and the man who attacked the dog was still at large. People on Nextdoor, working from Ms. Chrustic’s description, posted that they had seen him in one part of the park or another. Ms. Chrustic, who used to visit the park four times a day, now found it too traumatic to enter unless necessary.
She was especially frustrated that the man, who was well known to people in the park, had not been arrested. “You have a person who is walking around the park who is violent and needs to be removed,” she said. “He’s known by the community. It’s disheartening.”
It was a random incident that might once have been discussed by a group of dog owners. But now it had a forum for a much wider community, with arguments about policing, vigilantism, homelessness, mental health care and progressive obstinacy all feeding into a conversation that evolved beyond the crime that set it off.
“It’s complicated,” said S. Matthew Liao, a professor of bioethics, philosophy and public health at New York University. “It’s a conflict of values, between wanting security and social justice. Everybody has a responsibility in some ways.
What happened is - they got on social media (never a good idea) and discussed it on Next Door Neighbor (which is supposed to be a friendly neighborhood connector site - but ...it's social media).
Nextdoor, which claims an average of 37 million users per week, started in 2010 with the promise of connecting people with their neighbors and neighborhoods. One slogan went, “When neighbors start talking, good things happen.”
One thing they talked about, a lot, was local crime. In Nextdoor forums for communities all over the country, this included suspected crime and sightings of “suspicious” characters, leading early critics to say that what the platform really propagated was white fear. After complaints about racial profiling in 2016, the company instituted diversity training for its operations staff and new protocols for posts about crime and safety. But even in 2020, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez characterized it as an outlet for privileged white people to vent criminal fantasies about their Black and brown neighbors. She tweeted, “
nextdoor needs to publicly deal w/ their Karen problem.”A Nextdoor spokesperson said the company enables users to report any posts that they find offensive or discriminatory, which are then reviewed by volunteer community moderators or staff members. In 2021, only 1 percent of posts were reported as hurtful or harmful; about half of these were removed.
When Ms. Chrustic posted about the attack, the first responses were mostly notes of condolence and support. People with dogs posted that they had seen the man in the same area where she was attacked — why weren’t the police arresting him? Donations poured in to offset her veterinary bills.
But gradually, other voices emerged. A vocal minority asked why Park Slope residents, mostly white, were calling for the police to take down a man who appeared to be homeless and emotionally disturbed. Others called the man a “monster,” a “predator” or a “psychopath.” As on other social media platforms, the most ardent voices made the most noise.
Martin Lofsnes, 52, a dancer and choreographer who moved out of the neighborhood in 2020, came across the conversation while trying to sell some stuff and was appalled by the vitriol directed at an impoverished man, and by what he called “this vigilante attitude.”
He urged people on the thread to put their emotions aside and consider “400 yrs of systematic racism which has prevented black people from building generational wealth through homeownership resulting in the extreme disparity we see today.” Arresting the man, he wrote, would solve none of that.
With all the affluence in Park Slope, he posted, maybe critics should raise money to help the man, not throw him to the lethal jail system, from which he would most likely emerge more dangerous, or not emerge at all.
***
2. I decided to buy expensive orthopedic shoes via Kuru - which has shoes that provide arch support. I'm in desperate need of it - since I have high arches - and the lack of support is giving me lower back pain and pain in the arches.
We'll see if this works.
I may just need inserts.
3. If Americans Need Starter Homes Why are Perfectly Good Ones Being Torn Down
Mother told me about two friends - who had beautiful homes that they'd built torn down by the buyers, with new not so great homes being built in their stead.
Why buy a house just to tear it down? I do not understand human beings.
Animals on the African nature programs make more sense.
4. SNL Blew Through the News with a Game Show
Basically they made fun of all of the current trends that I'm willfully ignoring: game shows, Jeffrey Dahlmer mini-series...and sigh politics.
5. According to Time someone is racing to make a cure for Breast Cancer
So that's good news, I think.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-13 05:29 pm (UTC)I did get several pairs of shoes designed for support this year which have helped but they are all sandals. I found that sneakers and sandals were widely available -- closed or dressier shoes, almost absent.
I hear you about tearing down houses. It's almost always because the land is worth more than the home.
A friend is on Next Door and all I hear from her are complaints. I've no idea why she continues using it.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-13 11:07 pm (UTC)My brother refuses to be on any of it. Mainly because he's built and designed social media platforms and knows that they are built off of marketing logarithms.
We'll see how the shoes fare - coming Friday and Tuesday via FedEx. Hopefully they arrive without any issues.