White paint and a caustic chemical were poured from overhead into the courtyard burning a group of teenagers. Photo / Stephanie Keith, The New York Times
White paint and a caustic chemical were poured from overhead into the courtyard burning a group of teenagers. Photo / Stephanie Keith, The New York Times
The teenagers, some of them students at Brooklyn Tech, had been partying in a rented basement room at a public housing complex in Manhattan's East Village. Ashley Southall and Christina Goldbaum of The New York Times report.
A party advertised on social media drew as many as 300 young peopleSaturday night to a public housing complex in Manhattan's East Village, where residents said partygoers paid $10 to enter a basement room usually reserved for tenant meetings.
The music was blasting as the crowd, which included teenagers from an elite public high school in Brooklyn, spilled into the courtyard. Barely an hour had passed before residents of the development, the First Houses, called the police at about 10pm.
But someone upstairs had decided to take matters into their own hands. White paint and a caustic chemical were poured from overhead, burning at least 10 of the teenagers in the courtyard, the police said Sunday.
"I heard a huge ruckus and when I looked out the window, I saw a tonne of kids below," said Chaz Rosario, 30, who lives on the fourth floor. "I hadn't seen anything like that here before. I didn't know what was going on."
The victims, six girls and four boys between the ages of 15 and 18, were treated for minor burns at nearby hospitals, police said.
Valerie Vail, the mother of one victim, said many partygoers were students at Brooklyn Technical High School, including her daughter, a sophomore who she said was attending her first party as a student there. The attack left the girl with burns the size of dimes and quarters on her back, chest and arms, Vail said.
She said her daughter had shown her photos of other partygoers who had large burns across their chests, necks and legs.
After the paint and chemicals rained down, some partygoers rushed the East Third Street building's front door and attempted to force their way in, slamming their fists against the door's glass panes, cracking one, said Michael Strachan, 60, who lives in the building.
One of the residents who had gathered in a first-floor hallway went to the door and showed her government identification to the young people through the glass, witnesses said.
The group quickly scattered at the sight of the ID and the arriving police, who told them to back off.
"It was nuts," Strachan said. "I came home and there were all of these teenagers and smashed beer bottles everywhere, all of these cop cars were here, nobody knew what was going on."
White paint is splattered on a railing near the entrance of a basement room. Photo / Stephanie Keith, The New York Times
Many of the injured students ran to a nearby deli and doused the burns with milk. Vail said she told her daughter over the phone to get in a cab headed uptown, but police and ambulances swarmed as the girl was waiting with friends for a cab.
Vail said other parents of teenagers at the party had been told by police that a man who lived in the building appeared to have thrown an orange-coloured drain cleaner on the crowd below. The police would not confirm that information, or provide additional details. They said no arrests have been made.
"We are shocked," Vail said. "I try to teach my kid to be resilient, but it's also traumatic and upsetting."
Several residents of the building said they overheard the teenagers telling police and each other that the host of the party was a young man who had advertised the gathering on social media, with a $10 cover charge. Tenants said they do not believe the host lived in the building.
The tenants' association president, Heyward Walker, said Sunday that he had not rented out the basement room, as some residents said they suspected, but he would not comment further about the incident. A spokeswoman for New York City Housing Authority did not respond to an email seeking comment Sunday.
On Sunday, a marked police sport-utility vehicle sat outside the building, where footprints outlined in white paint stained the stone pathway from the back of the building to its front gate. Cigarette butts and smashed Heineken bottles littered the ground and smudges of white paint were brushed against two green posts outside the front door, where one pane of glass remained cracked.
Vail said she feared that some students who were injured had not been treated.
"A lot of the kids were afraid to tell their parents and have not had help yet," she said. "They're just scared."
Rosario said the party shook the typically calm neighbourhood.
"I'm concerned because this is a gated community," he said. "No one should have been in the gate to begin with unless they live here."
Written by: Ashley Southall and Christina Goldbaum
Photographs by: Stephanie Keith
