But some players believe the issue has more to do with their background than their behavior.

“Sometimes I try and avoid going on Joralemon,” said Aaliyah Johnson, 17, who is black and travels from Flatbush to play basketball. “It’s like they look at you, move their kids over like you’re going to do something, and clutch on to their purse. Your doing that — it just makes us not feel welcome. We just came here to play basketball.”

That race has become part of the discussion is inescapable, some say, given that the players coming to the park cross through an overwhelmingly white neighborhood — whites make up about 80 percent of residents in Brooklyn Heights, according to the United States census.

Some players, like Sheron Christie, 17, who lives in Ozone Park, Queens, say concerns about unruliness do have merit. A few months ago, Sheron said, he recalled players scattering in fear when a gun fell from someone’s backpack onto the blacktop. And on April 16 last year, the police arrested two young men who had been involved in a shooting on the pier. No one was injured.

Since April, the police have shut Pier 2 six times, either in response to fighting or to pre-empt possible violence. As part of its effort to avoid trouble, the Police Department has started monitoring social media for mention of the park. One of the shutdowns, the police said, was meant to stop a large party planned on Facebook, and two others came after threats on social media to “shoot up the park.”