[Photo courtesy of Nate Kensinger]
There was some chaos on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope yesterday when the Astoria Federal Saving at Tenth Street was robbed. This, in turn, resulted in what appeared to be an evacuation of MS 51 at Fifth Street next to JJ Byrne Park because many students were outside at the time of the incident. The school was later described as “being in lockdown,” according to parents, although police on the scene called it an evacuation at first. Filmmaker, photographer and GL Contributor Nathan Kensinger was in the area and filed a report yesterday afternoon and got these images of the aftermath. The Post says that two robbers stole $13,000 and fled in a Cadillac. One was caught shortly thereafter and a second person is being questioned.
Meanwhile, a student wrote GL to say:
hi i’m a student from ms51 and the school was not evacuated it was on lock down! We were outside for lunch, we had to stay in our homeroom with the doors locked while the cops searched our school, we were all freaking out! it was so scary! When we were outside it took 2 minute for the whole JJ burns park to be filled with students and cops helicopters, police cars, and motercycles surounding the school and old stone house! Kids filled the streets and ran after the police to see what was going on! We had to go in 10 minutes early and sty in our homerooms for about an hour. There were three guys one was caught one hid n a car and one was circleng our buildng. When we were heading inside he knocked down my friends trying to run away they all were armed with gums the man in the car all most hit me driving full speed trying to get away! there were rumors spread around the whole school saying they entered the school and had bombs and such. we found out they only had guns and had not entered the building. even though it was still scary. it was over 1000 kids freaking out because we didnt know what was happening. But the teachers kept us calm and quite while we waited for announcements from our principal Ms. Berner.
[Photo courtesy of Nate Kensinger]
[Photo courtesy of Nate Kensinger]
[Photo courtesy of Nate Kensinger]
4 responses so far ↓
1 anon // Jun 21, 2008 at 8:49 am
My son graduated from MS 51 on Thursday and we were at a celebratory lunch when he and his friends started getting text messages from friends at 51. Since we couldn’t find any info (I called a friend to check news websites ) we thought maybe it was a joke or at least the lock down part because one parent did say there were a lot of cops running down 5th Ave.
2 anon also // Jun 21, 2008 at 10:55 am
There is no wy a student at ms 51 actually wrote this. They were ALL armed! with guns! The car almost hit him driving full speed trying to get away!! It sure is a good thng thy have capabel teachers to keep them quite calm and such while waiting to hear from their principal, Ms. B-E-R-N-E-R.
3 general // Jan 18, 2009 at 9:45 pm
i was in 6th grade when that happened. every one in my class was so scared that when teachers came in to check on us they would duck under the tables
4 me // May 31, 2009 at 2:21 pm
i was in 6th grade. my hr teacher at the time, a chubby ela teacher was freakin us out.