Raid on the Nethermead!

Once again, a headline that promises more than it delivers.

According to our correspondent, around 6 P.M. yesterday, an unmarked SUV drove onto the Nethermead, three non-uniformed males jumped out, and (apparently) succeeded in giving a summons to one off-leash scofflaw while everyone else--there were many--leashed their dogs and walked away. On the way, it seems that at one point the SUV got stuck while these Keystone cops were trying to chase another off-leash scofflaw who wouldn't stop. Our correspondent asked them whether they were from the DOPR or NYPD, but received no response.

So the City is finally trying to deliver a message to these middle-class equivalents of graffiti vandals, and here it is: leash your dog or else, or else, or else we'll let you leash your dog when we come along, and in any event you almost certainly won't be given a summons.

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Central Park this morning, most of the dogs in the Ramble were leashed, as they should be. And then we saw, in rapid succession, two unleashed in the Ramble, and another three on the west side of the park around 75th Street, all after dog hours ended at 9 A.M. Here's one owner trying to leash her dog as she exits the Shakespeare Garden at about 9:20.