New York Neighborhood Unified by Actions of Good Samaritan
BROOKLYN – Evonne Parkins walks through the same small park in Williamsburg every night. With her distinctive tattoos and piercings many of the people who know her call “tribal,” she is a fixture in the neighborhood, greeted in all of the local coffee shops and in the record store and clothing boutique she owns with a friend. But last Thursday, her evening walk was interrupted by a figure with a long criminal past, and less than honorable motives.
“As I was walking through the park,” said Parkins two weeks after the attack, “A very strange person emerged from the swing set and demanded I give him my messenger bag and the wallet that was attached to the back pocket of my skinny jeans by a small chain.”“I thought he was being ironic, or that it was some sort of performance piece, but from his appearance I couldn’t tell if he was upper middle class, and I began to get scared.”“I wanted to run,” said Parkins, “but I could only stand there and mutter to myself, ‘Snoop, where’s Chris? Snoop where’s Chris? In case of trapped animal...’”Police refuse to identify the assailant, because the case is still active, but are calling him “Jonathan Roswell from Santa Fe, New Mexico.”“Mr. Roswell from Santa Fe New Mexico was recently released from a correctional facility in upstate New York,” said the desk sergeant on duty at the time of this report. “He’s a repeat offender, with a long criminal record of things like robbery, assault. A very unsavory individual.”Roswell from Santa Fe had begun his life of crime soon after graduating from the Wharton School. But on this night, fate interceded, in an act that would change two lives.Mariano Broxton responded to Parkins’ pleas of “Is this real? Is this real? Should I call for help?” with immediate action, entering the park and demanding that Roswell from Santa Fe tell him what was going on.“I am not an imposing person, but I try and stand up for what’s right. Clearly Mr. Roswell from Santa Fe was threatening Ms. Parkins in a way she could not understand, so I stepped in and helped.”When confronted by Broxton, RfSFNM fled the scene, but left behind him some DNA, in the form of excrement. He was apprehended sometime later as he tried to enter Connecticut.“Someone like that, they aren’t used to people actually resisting,” said Broxton. “So he shat himself and ran. It was quite smelly actually. I think he had been eating something savory.“I don’t think of myself as a hero.”And neither do the members of the neighborhood. Mr. Broxton has faced a backlash for his actions, resulting in the loss of his job, the loss of most of his social circle, and a host of legal troubles that have cost him his entire savings.“What he did was unconscionable,” said Ted Leo, Parkins’ current boyfriend of three months. “Her sense of agency has been totally undermined. She has been emotionally a wreck. She still hasn’t recovered.”“It’s true,” said Parkins, I haven’t been able to stop talking about the attack since that day. I ask everyone I know, ‘Did you hear what happened to me? It was on the news, NPR, the Times, you won’t believe it.’ I have that conversation at least eight times a day. I am forced to constantly relive it every interaction I have with everybody, although sometimes, because of the trauma, I end up playing it for laughs.”“This hasn’t stopped for two weeks,” she said.Peter Rimes, a resident of Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, described what has been the common response to the incident. “It’s shaken the fabric of our community here. For someone to take matters into their own hands, and risk their personal safety to save another person, that’s not what we are about. I mean, what if everyone took actions like the ones Broxton took? He has put us all in danger.”“And, by not allowing Evonne to act on her own behalf, Mr. Broxton has perpetuated the cycle of female victimhood that both she and I have been working together for so long to escape,” said Leo. “He’s undone years of our work in literature classes.”The outcry has cost Broxton his job as a legal aid. His actions have even gotten the attention of lawmakers in Albany, who have proposed that a special Evonne’s Law be passed to protect others.“I just thought I was helping. How could I know what would happen?” said Broxton.Dr. Extraño, a doctor working out of an office in Brooklyn and an expert on criminal behavior, said that Broxton is in dire need of evaluation. “These erratic actions undermine our social bonds. They erode the confidence we all need to navigate our social world effectively.”“I only hope Mr. Broxton can get the help he needs,” said Extraño. “My rates are very reasonable.”# # #