These “teen takeovers” are clearly mainly a Black phenomenon. But this is all The New York Times has to say about race:

Some of the panic over teen takeovers has echoes in worries over “wilding” in the late 1980s and “superpredators” in the 1990s.

“There was a lot of dog whistling there about the fact that these are Black kids who are gathering together in these large groups, and we should be afraid of them,” Mr. Steinberg said.

Black and Latino youth gatherings are more likely to be assumed as criminal, said Kristin Henning, a Georgetown University law professor who specializes in juvenile justice. White children in skate parks in the 1980s and 1990s did not generate nearly the same level of surveillance and arrests as Black gatherings, she said.

About par for the course for the NYTimes.

Across the country, police and city officials are trying to crack down on sometimes violent youth gatherings, but the teens themselves say they need some way to socialize and blow off steam.