Julian De Flandres, a 37-year-old Upper West Side software developer, was chatting with a friend on a bench near Wollman Rink in Central Park when he was robbed at knifepoint around 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 1 by a mob of as many as 20 teens and children — some as young as 8.
Here’s his story, as told to The Post’s Georgia Worrell:
We were sitting on the bench facing each other, talking. We had a few bags with us. We had just had dinner so we had leftovers with us and we were talking there for a while.
Even though it was dark it never really occurred to me to look out for our surroundings. There were also so many people and security cameras so I didn’t even think it would be a risky place to be.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that there was a group of people coming. I didn’t notice that they were all in one group because tons of people were walking around, so I didn’t pay them much attention.
The small kid with them — he could have been 8, maybe 9 at the most — came and beelined right up to us. When he got to our bench, he kind of mean mugged us and flexed on us. I was like “Oh, can I help you?”
At that point, all of the kids in this group surrounded us and started grabbing at our bags.
At that point, I realized, “Oh, they’re trying to take our stuff.” They were trying to grab our cell phones out of our pockets and stuff like that.
As I tried to push their hands out of my pockets, one of the smaller ones, maybe a 10-year-old kid, came up from behind and grabbed my wallet out of my back pocket.
I started running after him, but the other kids ran up to me and a few of them pulled knives.
I put my hands up and I was like, “Oh, okay, it’s yours – you can take it.” I definitely wasn’t going to put up a fight while knives were drawn.
Half the group started walking north and the other half stayed behind to aggressively push me back.
After that, I called 911, and maybe three to four minutes later, one of the kids came back on his bike. He gave me my wallet and he said, “I’m very sorry.” He looked like he was 14 or 15.
Despite what had happened, he seemed so sincere that I almost felt sorry for him.
Within 20 minutes, I started getting charges to both the credit card of mine that had been taken and also my girlfriend’s that had been in my wallet. We started getting notifications that they were at a McDonald’s spending $70, $80.
It was a surprise to have this happen in Central Park — it’s dark out, you know, but the park is well-lit, and there are other people around.
The fact that it started with an 8-year-old child was just like a dystopian feeling – like, it’s one thing for this to happen, but it’s another for these kids to be elementary-aged children.