NEW YORK (CBS 2/ 1010 WINS) — An alleged bias attack and two quick arrests in Brooklyn had police looking for a larger hate crime pattern on Tuesday.
CBS 2's Lou Young was in Williamsburg where some Jewish residents have been living in fear.
1010 WINS' Juliet Papa reports
The second suspected bias attack in two weeks happened steps from a yeshiva, near the intersection of Wallabout Street and Harrison Avenue. A 44-year-old Hasidic man, identified by friends as Moshe Guttman, was leaving a Hanukkah party at 11 p.m. on Monday. The following is what he told one of the people who stopped to help him.
''He said all of a sudden two guys just jumped him for no good reason. They didn't ask for money, they didn't ask for anything, just jumped him, beat him. That's when he started screaming and that's when they started running,'' Hershy Deutsch said.
They apparently ran into the arms of a community patrol that held them for police.
Cops told Young the two — both teens — admitted not only to Monday night's attack, but also the Thanksgiving beating that put Joel Weinberger in the hospital, breaking his jaw and his leg. That was another attack where the thugs didn't ask for money but just pummeled the victim.
''I am too traumatized to talk,'' Weinberger said from a hospital bed. In exclusive CBS 2 video, Weinberger shows the effects of a brutal beating police said he received at the hands of those same suspects.
The police commissioner said the teens charged with assault as a hate crime for the latest attack said the beat up the men ''for fun.''
''The young men made statements that they assaulted the individual on Nov. 25, the case where an iPod was found on the ground if you recall. That happened to be an iPod of one of the perps, so they made admission as far as Nov. 25 assault,'' Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
The arrests came as good news in a community where people often feel vulnerable to prejudice. The manager of Yeshiva Beer Hatova said his young students have been reluctant to walk outside their own school in their own neighborhood.
''They were afraid to come in the morning. They were waiting for their parents to bring them, those that's cant make the bus,'' Sam Fisher said, adding that the attacks have terrorized them.
Kelly said the teens admitted not only to the two attacks we already know about but three others we were previously unaware of. Detectives were canvassing the neighborhood in search of additional victims.
Although two of the victims are Hasidic, Commissioner Kelly said it appears members of other ethnic groups may have been targeted as well.
A 26-year-old Hasidic man was viciously assaulted on Wallabout Street in South Williamsburg in what witnesses believe was a hate crime.
Three thugs brutally assaulted a Jewish school teacher in South Williamsburg last Thursday evening, taunting him with an anti-Semitic slur, a source said.
Joel Weinberger, 26, was knocked unconscious with a broken jaw in a horrific encounter as he was walking home on Harrison Avenue at Wallabout Street at 7:20 pm from the Be'er Torah Yeshiva, cops said.
During the beating, at least one of the three suspects said, ''We hate you'' or, possibly, ''We hate Jews'' — prompting the NYPD to investigate the case as a hate crime.
The suspects tore up his clothing and punched him in the face, but did not take his wallet even though he offered it to them — another sign that this crime was a bias incident rather than a mugging, a source close to the family said.
The thieves did take the teacher's cellphone, but also left his religious garments in tatters.
''His religious hat was removed, his jacket was removed and his fringes were ripped,'' said Isaac Abraham, a Hasidic community leader. ''This guy was really beaten, he was punched by someone with rings on his hands who smashed his facial bones.''
Abraham and his former rival, Councilman Steve Levin, were first to call the incident a hate crime.
''Mr. Weinberger is an important member of the Williamsburg community, and it is my hope that his attackers are brought to justice quickly,'' Levin said.
On Monday afternoon, leaders of United Jewish Community Advocacy Relations and Enrichment, a Hasidic social services organization, offered $5,000 for any information regarding the identity or whereabouts of the suspects.
Weinberger was treated at New York Downtown Hospital where he received extensive reconstructive surgery for his face before returning home yesterday.
''Most of the injuries of his face were internal so doctors inserted a metal plate into his cheek bone and wired it in place,'' said Sara Stern, a patient advocate with Williamsburg Outreach who visited Weinberger last week. ''He looked all swollen up, his eyes were shut, and he was in and out of consciousness.''
This was not the Hasidic community's first brush with violence this year — but it may be its first hate crime.
A 25-year-old rabbi's son was shot outside a corner store on Driggs Avenue and S. Eighth Street on Aug. 11 in an attempted robbery, which prompted the United Jewish Organizations to offer a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
But community members remain alarmed at two incidents of anti-Semitic vandalism where police found numerous swastikas written inside a Harrison Avenue building and a Penn Street building earlier this month, according to Yeshiva World News.
''The last couple of weeks we've had some near misses,'' said Gary Schlesinger, executive board chairman of UJCare, who believes there has been a rise of gang activity in the area. ''People out there are afraid to go out at night which is terrible.''
Press Conference now announcing $5,000 for info leading to arrest of perpetrators who attacked Joel Weinberger http://twitpic.com/3bedxy
נשלח ב-30/11/2010 03:50
דא רעדט זיך פון גאר א חשובער יונגערמאן א גאון ותלמיד חכם ומרביץ תורה אין ישיבת באר התורה א זון פון ניגרעשט'ער רבי פון וומ"ס אייניקל פון הגאון מריסקעווע זצ"ל און פון ר' נתן יסף מייזעלס זצ"ל
