Group of Girls Allegedly Punched and Taunted 13-Year-Old in Most Vicious McCarren Pool Fight Yet
Dan MacLeod and Jessica Simeone, NY Post, July 20, 2012
A 13-year-old girl was punched in the face and needed surgery for a broken nose in the most vicious in a series of violent incidents since Brooklyn’s McCarren Park Pool re-opened last month.
Eighth-grader Sara Puk told The Post the trouble began as she and two friends were splashing around.
“We were screaming at each other, but it was like playing around,” she said yesterday.
An older girl said something to her, which she didn’t understand.
When she asked, the girl yelled, “Shut up!”
Trying to avoid trouble, Sara and her friends changed and left.
But when they passed through the exit, they found the older girl and four members of her posse waiting.
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“They started following us. I was trying to stand up for myself, I was like, there’s five of you guys there’s only three of us, we’re really little,” she said. “I was scared, it was five against three.”
One of the older teens got in her face and declared, “I’m going to hit you and I’m just going to walk away.”
Sara and her friends started running, but the older girls caught up. One made a video, which was posted on YouTube.
One of bullies yelled, “Go get her!” Sara said.
That’s when Eva Hawley, 16, allegedly landed a right hook to her nose.
“She’s jumping up and down, hysterically, laughing,” said a source who saw the YouTube video before it was taken down.
The older girls then took off and Sara, holding a towel to her bleeding nose, sat on a bench.
The attackers came back, one of them ripped the towel away and laughed.
“You are a bad-ass bully,” a Hawley pal gloated. “You f — ked up her nose good.”
“They were tormenting her and laughing,” the source said. “The victim starts to cry and they are mocking her for crying.”
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Doctors had to operate on her nose, which had bled for three hours
Hawley was busted after Sara recognized her at a festival at a local church and told her mom, who notified cops. {snip}
Another girl, 14, was issued a juvenile report.
The attack is the fourth violent incident since the Williamsburg pool reopened on June 28 after a $50 million renovation.
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