Take these crimes very seriously

To the editor:

There is so much sad and terrible news these days that some of you may have missed the news of a recent local event. You may have missed the June 19 piece in Gothamist about report of nooses in Van Cortlandt Park met with indifference.

A couple, out for a stroll in the park near West 242nd Street, came upon several rope nooses hanging from trees. They were disturbed and alarmed by this on the evening of Juneteenth. The police, who responded to the scene, did not open an investigation, and the people there were told that the hanging ropes were part of celebrations with piñatas.

This letter is to urge our community, elected officials and New York Police Department officers to take events such as these far more seriously. We are living in a time when the President of the United States and his enablers use hate and division to cynically manipulate American voters. The so-called “dog whistles” to white supremacists in this country have become loud and clear.

In the end — whether it’s a swastika scrawled on a local synagogue, a Confederate flag waving, or nooses swinging from our beautiful Bronx trees — now is the time to respond. Let everyone know that, here in New York — in the Bronx, and in Riverdale — hate has no home.

We demand a full investigation.

Silvia Blumenfeld

The author is a member of the Northwest Bronx Indivisible Steering Committee.

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