Julian De Flandres, a 37-year-old software developer from the Upper West Side, was chatting with a friend on a bench near Wollman Rink in Central Park when he was robbed at knifepoint by a mob of up to 20 teenagers and children, some as young as 8, around 10:30 p.m. on August 1..
Here is his story, as told to Georgia Worrell of The Post:
We sat on the bench across from each other and talked. We had a few bags with us. We had just eaten dinner, so we had leftovers and we sat there talking for a while.
Even though it was dark, it never occurred to me to pay attention to our surroundings. Besides, there were so many people around and there were so many security cameras that I didn’t even think it could be a risky place.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a group of people walking towards me. I didn’t realize they were all in a group because there were tons of people walking around, so I didn’t pay much attention to them.
The little boy that was there – he might have been 8, 9 at the most – came and walked right up to us. When he got to our bench, he kind of ambushed us and started showing off. I said something like, “Oh, can I help you?”
At this point, all the kids in the group surrounded us and started grabbing our bags.
That’s when I realized, “Oh, they’re trying to take our stuff.” They were trying to snatch our phones out of our pockets and things like that.
As I tried to pull their hands out of my pockets, one of the smaller ones, maybe a 10-year-old boy, came up from behind me and snatched my wallet from my back pocket.
I ran after him, but the other children ran towards me and some of them pulled out knives.
I put my hands up and thought, “Oh, okay, it’s yours – you can take it.” There was no way I was going to fight back while the knives were drawn.
Half the group started running north and the other half stayed behind to aggressively push me back.
After that, I called 911 and about three or four minutes later, one of the kids came back on his bike. He gave me my wallet and said, “I’m so sorry.” He looked like he was 14 or 15.
Despite everything that had happened, he seemed so sincere that I almost felt sorry for him.
Within 20 minutes, both my credit card and my girlfriend’s, which was in my wallet, were charged. We received notifications that they had been to McDonald’s and spent $70, $80.
It was a surprise that something like this happened in Central Park – it may be dark outside, but the park is well lit and there are other people there.
The fact that it all started with an 8-year-old child felt dystopian – it’s one thing for something like this to happen, but quite another for these children to be elementary school-aged children.
