Let’s get something straight right away: What happened at 69th Street and Eliot Avenue last weekend was serious—not a case of kids blowing off steam, and not something to shrug off.
This was a coordinated mob that took over an intersection at 1:48 in the morning, lit fires, blocked streets and turned a quiet Queens neighborhood into something that felt closer to chaos than a city under control.
Hours later, my office was flooded with calls. Residents were scared, frustrated and furious. People couldn’t sleep. Families were watching it unfold from their windows, wondering how this is allowed to happen in their neighborhood.
And here’s the reality no one wants to say out loud: While this was happening in the 104th Precinct, there was another car meetup unfolding in the neighboring 110th.
Same night. Same problem. Not enough cops to go around.
The NYPD responded and they are making progress, including seizing vehicles tied to the incident, but they are being asked to do too much with too little.
We simply do not have enough police officers or patrol cars on the street, and every weekend we are seeing the consequences play out in real time. This is not an isolated incident. It is a pattern. Car meetups, takeovers, loud music blasting through the night, streets treated like racetracks and neighborhoods pushed to the brink.
After meeting with Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, I am told more officers are on the way. That is necessary and long overdue. But staffing alone will not fix this unless we stop relying on purely reactive policing, where units rush to a scene after the chaos has already taken over and, by the time order is restored, the damage is done and the crowd has moved on.
We need proactive policing, and that means getting ahead of these meetups before they happen. These events are openly planned on social media, which means stronger NYPD intelligence and monitoring is essential to identify, track and disrupt them early.
It also means putting real, visible measures in place on our streets. Checkpoints, targeted stops and inspections focused on the vehicles we all know are part of the problem, not going after someone who forgot to use a turn signal.
I’m talking about the obvious red flags: souped-up cars, illegal tints, fake or paper plates, out-of-state tags used to dodge accountability. The same vehicles showing up again and again, weekend after weekend.
But enforcement only works if there are consequences. Our district attorneys and judges need to get with the program. Too often, arrests are made and cases are watered down, dismissed or pled away, and the same individuals are back out the next weekend doing it all over again. That is not justice. That is a revolving door, and it sends a message that there are no real consequences for this kind of behavior.
What’s even more frustrating is the complete lack of urgency from City Hall. I reached out to Mayor Mamdani that day, asking for a strong, clear message that this kind of chaos, this disorder, this dystopian nonsense will not be tolerated in New York City. It took three days to get a response.
And when it came, it was the usual boilerplate that his team would “look into it.” That’s not leadership. That’s a shrug.
We cannot allow a city where mobs take over intersections, light fires and terrorize neighborhoods while elected officials downplay it or stay silent. Not in Middle Village. Not in Maspeth. Not in Malba. Not anywhere.
And let’s stop pretending this is harmless. It’s not. It’s dangerous, it’s escalating and it’s eroding people’s sense of safety in their own communities.
The answer is clear: more cops, proactive policing, real intelligence work and a justice system that actually backs it up with accountability.
Councilmember Wong represents Maspeth, Middle Village and parts of Ridgewood, Glendale, Rego Park and Elmhurst.
