What, dear God, will we do about the bike teens?

The fuckers are everywhere.

Everywhere being Figueroa Street, mostly, and the fuckers being the bands of bicycle-borne teenagers who beat, rob, and terrorize the residents of University Park with seeming impunity.

They’ve thrown bottles at passersby from a parking structure. They’ve knocked a victim unconscious outside Wingstop. They’ve hurled rocks and slurs at a gay couple and brandished knives at a Metrolink station.

Then there are the phones. They keep snatching phones. Sometimes they nab headphones, too, on these violent Tours de Figueroa.

It’s no doubt a problem, and USC students are starting to notice. Since the start of November alone, USC’s Department of Public Safety has issued five advisories related to large groups of bike-borne teens allegedly perpetrating crimes near campus.

The incidents aren’t new. But the unusually high volume in recent weeks has spurred a wave of social media posts calling for action against these teenagers.

Certainly, USC students have a penchant for overestimating crime in the neighborhood, and no kid should be penalized for cycling with his friends.

But the line between outdoor recreation and violent marauding is not a thin one — and teenagers aren’t just crossing it here. Such incidents have been reported across Los Angeles for months now.

In Hermosa Beach, a gang of bike teens brutally assaulted a 57-year-old man last week. (Two were later arrested, and it’s been said they belong to groups known as the Goons and Redondo Beach Killers.) In February, a swarm of teens violently beat a man in Beverly Hills, and last August, a group attacked a downtown driver in a similar incident.

So what’s to be done? How will we stop them?

Ed Palmer, assistant chief at DPS, said his department is working with LA police to establish a “focused presence” on the Figueroa Corridor and spot the teens early with surveillance cameras.

DPS has detained plenty of these teenagers, Palmer said. But in most instances, officers can’t do more than release them to their parents, and they may ultimately face limited consequences in the juvenile justice system.

“The officers here do a fantastic job of making arrests and taking people into custody,” Palmer said. “But that’s all we have control over.”

Speaking to students frustrated that DPS can’t make the problem go away, Palmer said: “I absolutely agree.”

“This is not a problem we’re going to arrest our way out of,” he added. “The homes have to be part of it, the schools have to be part of it. I’ve seen this for years.”

In the meantime: Keep your phone in your pocket when walking down the street, Palmer said. And don’t confront the kids — they’ll overwhelm you.

Ryan Benson has seen that firsthand. He and his husband were shopping at the Ralph’s on Vermont Avenue in April when, after a verbal confrontation, a group of teens began hurling homophobic slurs and pounding their car.

“I’m not going to say I’m necessarily afraid of any individual teenager, but when they all become a hive mind, that’s terrifying,” Benson said. “One was like an ‘Ayo!’ He got everyone’s attention, and within seconds, they all just went feral.”

Benson reported the incident to the police. He also reported when kids started sending him threatening messages on Instagram. He even identified the teens and sent their names to local schools, then started an online incident tracker.

Nothing came of it.

“These kids know that they’ll get away with it,” Benson said. “They know that they have, that they do, and that they will continue to.”

Tomo Chien can be reached at [email protected].