Gang members taking off guys' pants on the street, as humiliation

[Pants_Down]

When I was in middle school, my parents gave me the paperback "Run, Baby Run," an autobiography of Nicky Cruz, a NYC gang member later turned evangelist… Cruz described several incidents in which members of his gang, finding a rival gang member (or just someone they wanted to harass) would unbuckle the guy’s belt, then pull off his pants and underwear right there in front of everyone on a New York City street. They’d keep the clothes and leave him to run away, naked from the waist down.

Apparently, this kind of nude humiliation was considered getting off easy, as opposed to being seriously physically hurt.

A couple of quotes, the first, about a rival gang member...

“They had surprised one of the Phantom Lords by himself and had him on the sidewalk begging for mercy. ‘Take his pants off,’ I commanded. The boys unbuckled his belt and pulled off his pants. They threw them in the gutter and then ripped his shorts off. ‘On your feet, freak, and start running.’ We watched him as he ran terrified down the street. We were laughing and calling him names."

And a guy they just decided to rob, and humiliate, on the street in broad daylight:
“Just then Willie threw his arm around the man's neck from behind and jabbed the barrel of the gun into the side of his face. ‘Make another sound and I'll kill you,’ Willie hissed. The man stood frozen as Mannie and I began to frisk him. In his coat pocket I found the biggest roll of bills I'd ever seen. They were rolled together with a rubber band around them. I guess he was taking it to Mario's wife. ‘Hey, look, Willie. How about this? This guy's rich. Man, look at all this money.’ I backed off laughing. We'd struck it rich. I was bebopping in the street and began to make fun of him…Mannie got in on the act and started to unbuckle the man's belt. ‘How about it, man? You won't mind if we take your pants off so all the ladies can see how handsome you are!’ The man clenched his teeth and started to moan. ‘Hey, man, we're doing you a favor," Mannie said. ‘Come on, let's get these pants down like a good little boy.’”

If I remember correctly, something distracted or prevented them in the second case, so that they didn't actually peel this guy's pants down. But the gang members' conscious use of the humiliating threat of exposing an innocent man's hips and genitals in public, in front of dozens of onlookers, really shocked me, at the time.