Sunday, July 8 at Oval Park, around 7:30 p.m. (I wasn’t really looking at the time, just trying to enjoy the hot evening with my kids), a fight erupted right in front of the park’s bathroom building.  

A group of Mexican men, who constantly sit above the tunnel by the stone wall waiting and watching for trouble, came down the nearby stairs and attacked another young man who did not provoke the attack in any way. He was hit with punches and chains and left bleeding.  

He stumbled into the building for assistance, where we assume the police were called. They took 15 minutes to respond, and, of course, the gang was long gone.  

But don’t worry, they will be back, sitting there waiting to do more harm. We are losing our precious park to hoodlums and gangs and will have no safe place to take our kids to very soon.  

You cannot contact the Parks Department directly any more and have to go thru 311 to get any complaints through. This takes longer, and less and less seems to be accomplished from the Parks Department lately. Patrol cars are hardly visible, and never when they are really needed, like on the weekends when the soccer teams and their families are there drinking alcohol openly and leaving their garbage everywhere. Come and visit late Sunday evening or early Monday morning and see the destruction they leave behind.

This park is all some of us have for our kids, and it is being ruined and taken away from us. We need help from police and the Parks Department now, before it’s too late! The Norwood News asks that we sign our names to letters, but for fear of being identified, I ask that you withhold my name in this case.

Name Withheld