Violent “grownup takeover” rampages wreck New York City after Knicks NBA games

Adults suffer cognitively deteriorating brains and terrible statistical trends. Should we be allowed to legally gather in public?

“56 arrested during unruly Knicks celebrations outside Madison Square Gardens,” the ABC News headline reads. “Once again, there were large crowds of people who engaged in incredibly reckless and dangerous behavior last night both during and after the game,” the New York City Police Department lamented. Whether the hometown-hero Knicks win or lose, grownups riot.

NYPD detailed the mayhem they faced from Knicks fans, who paid $8,000 per ticket for the NBA finals (any teenagers there would have to be from Scarsdale):

· Taking over streets, shutting them down to vehicular traffic.

· Jumping on top of moving trucks, taxis, and other vehicles while people were in them.

· Trying to physically flip over a taxi.

· Igniting rounds of fireworks in the middle of large crowds.

· Climbing on top of scaffolding, light poles, traffic lights, and buildings.

· Throwing glass bottles and other objects at the crowd and at cops.

· Physical fights that resulted in injuries.

· Climbing on top of NYPD vehicles, resulting in significant damage to four department cars, shattering front and back windshields.

· Breaking into a tractor trailer, stealing items inside, and throwing them at cops and the crowd.

· Police say 10 members of the NYPD were injured, including one member of the NYPD who was struck in the head with a glass bottle.

This mayhem was by legal-aged grownups with “mature, developed, prefrontal cortexes” (intoxication levels not specified) in two nights that objectively were worse by far than any of the media-terror-splashed “teen takeovers.”

Yet, instead of monitoring social media to ban teens from gathering, instead of showing up in force to break up any youthful crowd, police chaperone and safeguard adult gatherings, even providing a security perimeter. Nor do the press and cops indulge in the mass, collective blaming and punishment calls reserved for powerless groups like youth. MSG corporates already are whining that police safety perimeters cut into their profits.

Enough. I propose a radical policing policy applied to teenagers and adults alike based on the premise that all ages deserve access to public space; no age has the right to violence and destruction. Please be sitting down. I may get on Homeland Security’s list for even venturing such a shocking suggestion:

· Arrest individuals (regardless of demographic characteristics) whose violence, vandalism, and criminal behaviors are causing harm.

· Don’t arrest, ban, or negatively characterize people (regardless of demographic characteristics) who are causing no problem.