The phenomenon I refer to as 'pibes chorros' ('child thieves') has three main causes: there is no family, no school, and no Church. It is in this context that we find young people who are capable of killing for a backpack or a cell phone.
Four masked muggers wearing all black stabbed a 15-year-old boy they didn't know in a robbery in Hell's Kitchen during Monday’s evening rush, cops and law-enforcement sources said....