BEAT HIM WITH BRICK FOR 'FUN'
'I'm lucky to be alive,' victim says

Friday, June 22, 2007
By MICHAELANGELO CONTE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A 15-year-old Ferris High School student who was acting on another boy's dare to "try beating up that guy" has been charged with viciously beating a Jersey City man with a brick while a group of fellow students cheered him on, officials said yesterday.

"He hit me with a brick three times on the right side of my face," said Gilberto Negron, 52, whose face is still black and blue, swollen and stitched as a result of the Tuesday afternoon attack.

Negron, a Ferris graduate himself, had just bought lunch at a deli and was on Brunswick Street between First and Second streets when he was attacked, he said. Witnesses said the boy came up from behind him and just began hitting him.

Negron said there were four or five others who "were just cheering the guy on while he was hitting me."

"They didn't take anything," he said. "They just did it for fun."

Negron said he was knocked unconscious a few seconds and woke to see the group running away. He said he went back to Introcaso-Angelo Funeral home, where he works, and into a bathroom to wash off the blood. He said one look in the mirror made him think, "I'm lucky to be alive."

An ambulance took him to the Jersey City Medical Center for stitches on the bridge of his nose, his forehead, and the insides of his upper and lower lips. Doctors say his face is too swollen to determine if his jaw and nose are broken, he said. He's going back for a check-up today, he said.

One of his daughters threw up in a hospital bathroom after seeing him, he said. His other daughter, Adalis Negron, 21, said that when she saw her father back at their Greenville home, she had to turn her back to get control of her emotions.

"He could have killed him," Adalis Negron said yesterday.

Witnesses in the area told police the boy came up behind the victim and just started hitting him. They said they thought the attacker was a Ferris student because they had seen him with Ferris students earlier, reports said.

Police spoke to the high school principal, who gave them photos that led to the boy's identification, said Gerard Crisonino, a spokesman for the school district.

The boy was arrested about 4 p.m. yesterday, city spokesman Stan H. Eason said.

Negron said he was at a loss to understand what happened.

"I never had an argument, never had a fight, I'm old school," he said. "When I went to Ferris, I never saw kids like this. In my days we had to wear a suit and tie, we had respect."

Downtown City Councilman Steven Fulop said "wolf packs" of youths are a serious problem that will become worse in the summer unless children are given more outlets for recreation.

"These wolf packs are a serious problem, and it's not addressed by the police," Fulop said.

Eason said police are responding to the problem, and all other crimes, saying it is reflected in statistics showing crime is down in nearly every category.

"We do not say that the incident of juvenile crime is not serious, but we do not categorize every incident as a wolf pack when they are not wolf packs," Eason said.