Crime

“Prospect Fights”

17 Comments

Henry Graff reports for NBC 29 about a disturbing new trend: groups of Charlottesville teenagers filming street fights to share the video on Youtube. Four separate Youtube users have all uploaded footage of fights between groups of black kids at Prospect Avenue and Forest Hills Park. Though several of the videos are now gone, along with Youtube user “DatNiggaJeeze”‘s account, several other videos that certainly appear to be filmed locally [1, 2, 3] still remain. In them, 1-2 dozen people mill around, alternately egging people into fights and fleeing when things get too dangerous. Sometimes several fights break out between different people, in rapid sequence.

Most were filmed in the past two months, the same period in which groups of black teenagers have been randomly assaulting people walking downtown. Police Chief Longo speculates that there’s a connection; it’s not surprising that the aggression shown in these videos would spill over to attacks on strangers. Long says that they’ve been keeping an eye on these videos as they’ve appeared for the last couple of months. Perhaps this will provide some leads in bringing an end to these random attacks. Police say they’re making progress, but can’t disclose specifics.

17 thoughts on ““Prospect Fights””

  6. I must admit, Jon S., I wouldn’t mind watching that video on TV. I did read that news blurb about the video of the fights, but I don’t see where those fights are connected to Charlottesville.

  9. Ron Mexico is an, um, alias of football player and all-around humanitarian Michael Vick. From Wiki:

    In March 2005 a woman named Sonya Elliott filed a civil lawsuit against Vick alleging she contracted genital herpes from Vick and that he failed to inform her that he had the disease.[20] Elliot further alleged that Vick had visited clinics under the alias “Ron Mexico” to get treatments and thus he knew of his condition.

  13. Poughkeepsie has always been “ahead” of us. Go visit sometime. Not a bad place. If it wasn’t for the glorious U of Va. and all of it’s economic influence Charlottesville would be no better and most likely worse than Petersburg…

    Many have known of the “underbelly” of Charlottesville for some time but it was all too often ignored until fairly recently.

  14. Poughkeepsie has always been “ahead” of us. Go visit sometime.

    Really? I’ve been to Poughkeepsie. My car was nearly stripped as I was driving down the street. I must have been on Poughkeepsie’s Prospect Ave.

  15. I have lived across from Forest Hills Park for 10 years. I call many times a month about the drug trafficking going on there. The transactions are blatant and quick. Counting their money and smoking marijuana out in the open, only to leave just before the police get there. Fights have broken out and gunshots have been fired. Prostitutes have been picked up by filthy old men. Piles of trash being thrown out of the cars as they wait. Yet still, even with this new video of fights in Forest Hills Park, I still do not see police patrol the area regularly. I realize they are busy but driving through the neighborhood occasionally would deter the majority of it. Just a suggestion. (And yes, I have already suggested this to the police.)

  16. There does seem to be some inflated motive (beyond the jollys of just randomly selecting people to stomp) for the regularity of the rash of assaults, and one theory cited by Chief Longo in this week’s C-ville Weekly seems very culpable to me:

    As for motives, Longo says …Another is that the reoccurring beatings have been fueled by media coverage. “This is getting a lot of attention,” he says. “It might be ‘Let’s see who can get on the front page, above the fold, the quickest tomorrow.'”

    I don’t have any suggestion for this dilemma, as the public wants/needs to be informed about the goings-on of their community, but I do think the gangsta “fame factor” is playing a part.

  17. Concerned,
    We had a lot of trouble with drunken, violent neighbors. I had been calling the police regularly for a couple of years but the problems seemed to be getting worse. The thugs actually seemed to regard the whole situation like a big game and were proud of getting arrested and causing trouble. Well, they are now no longer a problem and the Charlottesville Police Department helped get the problem fixed, but just calling them when there was a problem wasn’t enough.

    If you haven’t contacted Chief Longo directly I suggest that you do so. His email is longo@charlottesville.org. Right now he’s on vacation until August 6 so you may not hear back from him until he returns. I would also suggest that you request a list of all the calls that the police have received for criminal activity at Forest Hills Park. Once you get the list call up every local reporter you can think of and encourage them to write this up. Publicity will help produce a solution.

    Unfortunately, it may take an exceptionally violent or disruptive episode to push the problem into a priority status. That’s what it took for us. A neighbor was brutally assaulted and then things started happening. The assailant got evicted and landed in jail. Staying in the house and calling the police may not be enough. I wish it were and I think it should be enough but it wasn’t for us.

    Good luck,
    Kevin Cox

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