"A party advertised on social media drew as many as 300 young people on Saturday night to a public housing complex in Manhattan’s East Village..."

"... where residents said partygoers paid $10 to enter a basement room usually reserved for tenant meetings. The music was blasting as the crowd, which included teenagers from an elite public high school in Brooklyn, spilled into the courtyard. Barely an hour had passed before residents of the development, the First Houses, called the police at about 10 p.m. But someone upstairs had decided to do something about it. White paint and a caustic chemical were poured from overhead, burning at least 10 of the teenagers in the courtyard, the police said on Sunday.... After the paint and chemicals rained down, some partygoers rushed the East Third Street building’s front door and attempted to force their way in, slamming their fists against the door’s glass panes, cracking one, said Michael Strachan, 60, who lives in the building. One of the residents who had gathered in a first-floor hallway went to the door and showed her government identification to the young people through the glass, witnesses said. The group quickly scattered at the sight of the ID and the arriving police, who told them to back off.... 'I’m concerned because this is a gated community,' [one tenant] said. 'No one should have been in the gate to begin with unless they live here.'"

From "10 Teenagers Burned by Acidlike Liquid Thrown From Above at Raucous Party/The teenagers, some of them students at Brooklyn Tech, had been partying in a rented basement room at a public housing complex in Manhattan’s East Village" (NYT).

That's a lot of chaos. Count the manifestations of failure of empathy.

It's a very old-fashioned remedy — I think I used to see it in the old comic strips — pouring a liquid from the upper story onto somebody who's bothering you in the street below. But this was a "caustic chemical," an "acidlike liquid." Cruel, depending on what, exactly, the liquid was.

If it were a private house and the homeowner discovered that teenagers had broken in and were having a party, what could the homeowner do? Here, you have people living in "a public housing complex," and they want to think that the rules and the gate protect them from intruders. What can they do? We hear that they "called the police at about 10 p.m. But someone upstairs had decided to do something about it," but we're not told what time that person upstairs made that decision. Was it 15 minutes later? And hour later? 2 hours later? I don't know. I do know that if I called the police and reported an unauthorized party in my basement, they'd be here in 5 minutes.

Clearly, the NYT's sympathy is with the burned/"burned" teenagers. The tenant is made to look like heartless and privileged: "I’m concerned because this is a gated community." A gated community! But it's East Village public housing. Shouldn't these residents feel secure in their homes? I'm not defending pouring acid on teenagers. I'm saying people want security and if they don't get it from the authorities, they tend to resort to self-help.

IN THE COMMENTS: Observing that the NYT wrote "caustic chemical" and "Acidlike Liquid," mockturtle wrote, "Well, which is it? Caustic is alkaline."