Four Nantucket men kidnapped and beat a 28-year-old man at a playground on the island last week, binding him with an extension cord at a home just down the street — a brazen daylight assault in the vacation enclave where the ruling class spends its summers lecturing the rest of the country about safety and values.
Newton Lawrence, 34, Calray Brown, 31, Dijon Hazel, 30, and Alvin Barnett, 21, all face charges of kidnapping and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, according to the Nantucket Police Department. The attack unfolded at roughly 4:30 p.m. on July 16 — broad daylight — at the Winter Park playground on Essex Road.
According to police, the four men confronted the victim in the parking lot, punched and kicked him, then beat him with a wooden stake before forcing him to a house at 24 Essex Road. That address is the shared residence of Barnett and Lawrence, per the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror. Local and state police found the victim there, restrained with an extension cord. He was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. All four suspects were arrested and are scheduled for arraignment Monday in Nantucket District Court.
MassLive reported the bare facts. The Washington Examiner, the other outlet assigned to this beat, had nothing on the Nantucket attack — instead running an opinion piece on an Ohio zoning dispute over a Jewish man's right to host a minyan in his home without a government permit. Different story, same instinct from the establishment: control ordinary people, ignore the chaos the elite would rather keep quiet.
Nantucket isn't just any town. It's a symbol — where billionaires and politicians retreat behind private security while telling working Americans they don't need guns, don't need borders, and don't need to question the experts. When your island paradise has playground kidnappings at 4:30 in the afternoon, maybe stop lecturing the heartland about its problems.
No information has been released about the relationship between the suspects and the victim, or about a possible motive. The case remains open ahead of Monday's arraignment.
