NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – The NYPD was searching for three men Sunday as its Hate Crimes Task Force investigated a suspected anti-Semitic spree in which Jews were harassed and attacked in Brooklyn on Saturday night.
The NYPD released surveillance video and photos of the three males and a blue Toyota Camry on Sunday evening amid the investigation into an attack on Jewish teens and the harassment of men at a synagogue—two incidents that police believe are connected.
The first incident happened around 7 p.m. at the Agudath Israel of 16th Avenue in Borough Park, where three men got out of a blue Toyota Camry and began to verbally harass four Jewish men, including yelling anti-Semitic remarks, police said.
The four victims went into a nearby synagogue, where the men began banging on the front door, police said. They were not able to gain entry.
One of the men then kicked and damaged the side mirror of an Audi belonging to one of the victims before they fled the area in the Camry, according to police.
Less than an hour later, two Jewish teens were attacked on Ocean Parkway, near 18th Avenue, in Midwood, police said.
The teens were approached by two men who got out of a blue Toyota Camry and verbally harassed them, according to police. The attackers punched the two teens and put one in a chokehold, police said.
The assailants had bats, but police said the teens weren’t struck with them. As the teens fled, the attackers chased them with the bats in their hands and waved them in the air, according to police.
A Muslim Uber driver who witnessed the attack told the teens to get in his car and they were able to get away, said former Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who spoke with the father of one of the teens.
Hikind said the teens would usually never get into a car on the Sabbath but they had to because their lives were in danger. He said the teens were emotionally shaken and recovering at home with minor injuries.
“It was just an absolute horror,” Hikind said. “The hate being directed against the Jewish community is just out of control.”
After the assault took place, the suspects fled in a Camry, police said.
The NYPD said earlier Sunday that they believe the incidents are connected, though in releasing video of the three suspects, the department only connected them to the harassment of the men at the synagogue.
The NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incidents as a string of potential bias crimes due to the timing and locations.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Chief of Dept. Rodney Harrison met with Jewish community leaders in Borough Park on Sunday.
“Anti-Semitism isn’t just a threat to our Jewish community, it’s an attack on our entire city,” de Blasio tweeted after the meeting. “Today I joined community leaders in Borough Park to send a message: we won’t turn a blind eye to this hatred. It will be confronted. The perpetrators will be brought to justice.”
“The attacks we saw in Brooklyn last night were unconscionable,” the mayor continued. “They were pure, unbridled anti-Semitism. And we do not need to look too far back in history to know what happens if we let that hatred go unchecked.”
De Blasio said that the NYPD will increase its presence in Jewish communities and outside houses of worship in the days ahead.
The incident and other reports of harassment of Jewish New Yorkers stoked fears of anti-Semitic violence linked to the 11-day war between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza strip.
More than two dozen people were arrested on charges including hate crime assault after pro-Israel and pro-Palestine demonstrators clashed in Times Square on Thursday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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