An Area Teen, His Death Simply Ignored Like So Much Christmas Garland

There’s a time to care when a gang of youths are in the middle of fatally beating one another at Union Square:

A pack of hooligans — clutching bats, belts, knives and planks of wood — killed a teen at the farmers market in Union Square yesterday, sending holiday shoppers ducking for cover behind tables of cookies and Christmas trees.

“You saw hands and fists flying. One girl with a burgundy coat was beating someone with a cane,” said Derwin Hannah, 43, a book vendor. “It went down like ‘The Warriors’ [movie].

“Innocent people were locked in against the tables.”

. . .

Hannah said he knew trouble was brewing when young people started gathering in packs at a McDonald’s on the west side of the park. “Every couple of minutes, more and more would come,” he said.

Then they inexplicably stormed the peaceful market.

“I suddenly saw a bunch of kids. One had a belt with the metal side out,” said Laura Chipley, 30, a shopper from Brooklyn. “I saw a guy with a piece of wood. He was using it like a bat. It was a wild melee.

“Then they got closer to me, and I got out the way.”

And then there’s a time to go back to work:

About 20 youths were being questioned by police last night, sources said. But it was business as usual at the market, where shoppers walked around crime scene tape as if it were Christmas garland.