staten island advance.

teens say boredom, not race, fuels unrest.
despite a rash of bias incidents, young people say turf mindset is often at the root of street squabbles.
9.22.2003

On a quiet Friday night on the South Shore, Nick Comitini and the rest of the Village Greens boys are doing what they always do.

Smoking. Drinking. Kicking around an abandoned shopping cart on Nedra Lane, their "block," in Arden Heights. Cursing each other and each other's mothers with ease. Roaming the neighborhood with hitched, Eminem-style steps, avoiding the cops. Sitting on the curbside with their girlfriends, doing nothing.

It's like this for hours, until four strangers -- three black, one white -- show up, passing through to get to the park behind PS 4. They walk in an arc that never intersects the other boys' paths.

The atmosphere changes in a heartbeat. Chests puff out like balloons. Cigarettes drop to the ground and are extinguished by running feet. There are shouts, some of them slurs -- the same names the boys constantly call each other. The outsiders turn, waiting for the others to catch up, anticipating a fight.

Since Labor Day weekend, when a young black girl and her friends were allegedly attacked by Great Kills youths with broken bottles and what has been called a "sickle-like weapon," a rash of reported bias incidents have left scars across the Island. They prompted politicians from other boroughs to angrily suggest Staten Island is racist and describe the Staten Island Expressway as a Mason-Dixon line. The Island's elected officials vehemently defended their hometown against such generalizations.

But whatever's responsible for the oncoming fight in Village Greens, Comitini, the oldest of the bunch, screams for it to stop.

"Get over here, b--! Ain't no fighting going on! Yo, get the f-- over here!"

He shouts at the top of his lungs, but his crew isn't listening. So he sprints. He makes it to the front line, about 30 yards away, before the two groups can even meet. His crowd falls back and lets him talk.

Five minutes, a quiet conference and a handshake later, the groups part, and the four outsiders continue on their way.

bravado, not bigotry

The VG boys, some of them black, swear skin color had nothing to do with the would-be incident.

"Those same kids were down here earlier," Comitini explained. "They were looking at one of my friends. My friend got stupid."

"Got stupid" means there was trouble: Nasty looks, words exchanged, possibly a punch or two. According to the boys, stupidity is responsible for almost all neighborhood fights. It doesn't matter who gets stupid first, or what someone who got stupid looks like; all that matters is where it happened. Dressed in baggy clothing and tightly knit, the South Shore teens fiercely protect their territory, and when asked, can't even articulate why.

"Because it's ours," they answer.

But they're clear on one thing. "We're no gang. We're just kids that hang out," they insist.

The "boys" titles aren't even as gang-related as they sound; they're more convenient classifications than anything else. When a boy outside the now-closed Atrium Cinemas in Eltingville shouts into his cell phone, "You know what happened? All the Eltingville boys came up to him!" it's enough explanation for a nearby friend to mutter, "Oh, s--!"

This turf mindset is why the boys switch into high-alert mode whenever they see people they don't know, and it's in this mode that a raised eyebrow is enough to start a brawl.

"This is our neighborhood. We don't leave our neighborhood," Comitini said. "There's no racial nothing around here. But if a bunch of black kids come around here saying, 'Oh, this is our neighborhood,' of course the little kids are going to (fight)."

Comitini calls all the other boys "little kids." At 18, he's the oldest and most experienced of the VG boys. He's two years through a five-year probationary period imposed because of a fight with someone he says was trying to sell his kid sister marijuana. He's working toward his GED, hoping to be at the College of Staten Island by February, and threatens to beat up his friends if he sees them cutting school or getting stupid without good reason. He says there's a fight in the area about once a month, and when he can't defuse it, he tries to make sure it's a one-on-one.

boredom, booze don't mix.

A.D. Harris is a black Stapleton resident who works security in the Village Greens shopping center. Because Village Greens boasts a huge parking lot which, when empty, is perfect for fights, Harris' security firm was hired to keep the lot free of loiterers after hours.

Harris usually stations himself in front of the center's deli, where the boys start their nights by using of-age friends or well-crafted fake IDs to get liquor. He shuffles the youths away, but also chats with them, purposefully using the same ghetto-esque vernacular they do. He listens when the boys tell him their problems, and as a result, they listen when he tells them to leave.

He, too, swears race has nothing to do with the trouble he sees between neighborhood kids on the South Shore.

"They get drunk, and they get stupid," he said. "You know why? They got nothing else to do. They are downright bored."

South Shore kids have long complained that there's nothing to do at night. The Staten Island Mall closes at 9:30 p.m. The parks close by 10 p.m. The few night centers, most of which are only open during the school year, shut down by the same time. They're too young for clubs and bars, and most are too young to drive. The only other option is the movies, which are too expensive for a nightly trip even if there was a cineplex currently open in the area.

The Village Greens boys usually stick to Nedra Lane, but sitting in one spot for too long is an invitation for a summons, so they walk the neighborhood.

Residents call the cops when they hear them cut through, or after finding bottles on their lawns and their garbage cans toppled. The boys are ticketed and picked up so often the cops at the 123rd Precinct can rattle them off by name.

Comitini says he averages about one summons a week. He once got a ticket for riding his bicycle on the sidewalk, and his sister once came home with the telltale pink slip after a King Kullen milk run. Each ticket means a court date, missed school and possibly a fine or community service.

The boys feel picked upon, but the police say they're trying to prevent idle hands from causing serious damage.

"If the kids out there hate me, that tells me one thing: I'm doing my job," Sgt. John Peruffo said.

what's a parent to do? In front of the deli in Village Greens, a neighborhood girl whines to Harris.

"A.D., the cops gave me a J.D. (juvenile delinquent) card!" she yells. "They told my parents I was drinking a (beer)!"

That was a week ago, Harris said. "A week. And she's out here again. The parents just don't care."

Most of the boys in the area come from middle-income families. Their clothes often look new, and if they can drive, it's usually in a new or nice family car. Cell phones are ubiquitous, and some of the boys are even dropped off and picked up by their parents.

Comitini's father, Carl, works in moving and storage in Manhattan. He, his wife, son and daughter recently moved to Castleton Corners from Arden Heights. (Nick's friends who drive pick him up each night so he can still be a Village Greens boy.)

The Comitini house is medium-sized, cozy, full of photographs and noise, thanks to the bounding of a tremendously friendly golden retriever named Sabrina. Carl Comitini knows where his son goes every night, but doesn't see much that can be done.

"They get chased from one place, to another, to another, and after awhile, they get tired of chasing and they start fighting against each other."

Jay Ortiz lives on Hampton Green, a street that winds through an Arden Heights townhouse development, but lived in Bushwick, Brooklyn, until he was shot in the leg and watched a friend die at his feet. He's just plain disgusted.

"It's sick. You got real gangs out there. These kids are wannabes. They have no idea. I went from dealing with drug dealers and muggers to kids who want to be drug dealers and want to be muggers. I don't know which is worse," he said.

"I know they're not innocent," Carl Comitini said. "They look like angels, but when there's no adult supervision, they can turn into devils. The cops tell them to leave, they should go.

"But where?"