As for the police, they did post hard-to-read photocopied notices (signed by Deputy Chief Martin Duffy) on trees throughout the Ramble, asking witnesses to telephone a special police number if they had information concerning the beatings on "the night of June 7." The only problem was, Dick Button and the other new victims of the gay-bashers were assaulted on July 5.
Though Parks Commissioner Davis and Police Commissioner Robert McGuire last week announced a 22-member "special force" of undercover cops to be assigned to Central Park as a whole, these few police will have a lot of turf to cover. But 22 cops are nearly equal to the total number of police now on patrol in the entire 840 acres of the park at any one time. Sector Charlie, which covers the Ramble's winding paths from 74th to 79th Street, has only two patrolmen to cover that 30-acre maze. On the three nights I was there, I saw none.
Captain Lamb says that "less than 10 percent" of the violent crime in the park takes place after midnight. He had no figures on the Ramble. Yet one wonders how many—like Paul, the garment manufacturer—were afraid to report their attacks.
One is impressed by the dedicated work of policemen like detectives James O'Neill and Gerald Smith, who directed the swift arrest of six young suspects in these latest beatings. But one wonders: Would there have been such swift, massive action on, and careful attention to, this case had there been one lone victim, not the five whom police were able to identify? Or if one of the victims—Dick Button—had not been a celebrity? Or had not the press, because of celebrity and the number of victims, given such publicity to this case? Or if there had been an administration in City Hall less committed than Mayor Koch's to the rights of our city's million gay people?
Finally, one wonders how many more incidents there have been to match one I heard from a young executive I met on the Bridle Path: "I was attacked by two kids while walking alone in the Ramble last month. Miraculously, I found a patrolman and told him what had happened, as blood streamed down my cheek from a cut over my left eye. You know what he said? 'Serves you right, faggot.' "
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