Police are looking for a man they say made antisemitic comments before stabbing another man in Brooklyn on Tuesday, and have deployed extra officers to help with the search.
NYPD officials said the stabbing stemmed from a “seemingly random” altercation between the 35-year-old victim and the other man around 4 p.m. near the corner of Kingston Avenue and Lincoln Place in Crown Heights. The fight turned physical, with the alleged assailant pulling out a knife and stabbing the 35-year-old in his chest, officials said.
Police said the victim was taken to a local hospital for his injuries and released. The NYPD said it has sent dozens of additional officers to Crown Heights and surrounding areas to look for the suspect.
Authorities said they’re investigating the incident as a possible hate crime and asking the public to help look for the suspect. Surveillance images released by police show him wearing blue jeans, white and black sneakers and a black jacket with the word “genuine” on the back.
Yaacov Behrman, a rabbi and spokesperson for the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters on Eastern Parkway, wrote on social media that the suspect allegedly said “‘F these Jews’” and “stated that it would be okay if the Holocaust happened today.” The victim is Jewish, Behrman added.
The rabbi told Gothamist on Wednesday he’s worried more serious attacks could follow “unless people openly call out hate.” He said Brooklyn’s Chabad-Lubavitch community is reeling from the mass shooting at Australia’s Bondi Beach over the weekend, which killed more than a dozen people who had gathered at a Hanukkah event organized by the same movement there. Australian rabbi Eli Schlanger, who was killed in that attack, attended school in Crown Heights and still has family in New York, according to Behrman.
“Almost every family in Crown Heights knows somebody or is related to somebody who was either present at that attack, was injured or killed,” Behrman said. “This is absolutely just a wake up call for us that things are dangerous for Jews in New York and things are dangerous for Jews worldwide.”
Mayor Eric Adams, in a statement on X, condemned the incident as “evil, hateful antisemitic violence.”
“We cannot let this hate persist in our city, and we will never back down,” he said.
City officials had already increased police patrols near synagogues and menorah lightings in the wake of the mass shooting in Australia. Police asked anyone with information about the Crown Heights incident to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or, for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). They also asked people to submit tips on the Crime Stoppers website.
This story is based on preliminary information from police and has been updated with additional details.
