By COLlive reporter
How can you rob a person who does not have money?
That is what Shmuel M. is wondering after the New York Police Departement said they are treating the unprovoked violent attack on him as a robbery.
Shmuel, an Israeli-born Yeshiva student who asked that his surname not be mentioned, was peacefully walking to his residence on Monday night when 2 black males assaulted him.
“At 12:00, I was walking from 770 to my home,” he told COLlive.com. “In the middle of the block, I see a young man following me. I crossed (the street) to see if he was following me.”
When Shmuel reached the corner of President and Albany, after a few steps, he noticed the man running towards him, with a second young man running towards him from across the street.
The two non-Jewish assailants chased him, pushed him hard against a parked car, and began “to punch me in the face,” Shmuel said. “I began to scream (in English), ‘I don’t have money, I’m not from here! What do you want from me?'”
Video: Victim recounts attack
Shmuel says they didn’t ask for anything or try to steal anything from his pockets, they just continued punching him.
Thankfully, a resident of a nearby home witnessed the attack and called the police and volunteers from Shomrim patrol group, who quickly apprehended and arrested the two attackers.
Police later said the attack is being dealt with as a robbery since Shmulik was holding a “donation box” at the time of the attack.
Shmuel, who now has a black eye as a result of the attack, denied the claims of the police.
“It was not a charity box, but rather a gift item, brand new in a sealed box, that I was holding,” he told COLlive. “They did not think it was anything of value, and they did not try and take it from me.”
Shmuel said he is grateful to G-d that he miraculously escaped harm from the attackers, who were found to be in possession of knives and a wrench when they were caught by police.
“I truly thought they were going to kill me,” he said. “I was terrified.”
NYS Senator Jesse Hamilton said about the attack, “Crown Heights should be safe for everyone who lives, works, or visits our community – hate crimes have no place here. That is why the assault upon a Yeshiva student from Israel on Monday night is so outrageous. Everyone has the right to walk our streets in peace. Thanks to Shmira and Shomrim for assisting police and protecting Crown Heights residents and guests. We speak with one voice when we denounce these hateful crimes and stand with our family, friends, and neighbors for peace on our streets.”
A police official told COLlive.com on Tuesday that “Hate Crimes was notified about this attack and they are currently looking into it, but as of now, we are still carrying it as a robbery/assault.”
have left Crown Heights in search of affordable housing. Another significant amount of our community are students from overseas or out of town that are ineligible to vote. And lastly there are still, Baruch Hashem, a large amount of underage children. Add to that sudden emergencies that can arise unexpectedly on voting day in a person’s life, and you should understand that our voting bloc is not as big as it once was! Surely you should vote if you’re qualified & able, but the ultimate source of strength is, was, and always will be abishter’s mercies and blessings. Let’s do… Read more »
There is a second idea besides voting. Crown heights can’t muster the votes like Jews in monroe or williamsburg because many are foreign students living there. But there is another option. That is to create a race explosion which non if the secular or rich modern Jews in manhattan want to see. You need to begin getting media to broadcast conflict and then the squirmy liberal politicians will wake up. First you can get students to protest and agitate the media with ideas like calling all rich Jews to fire anyone connected to anti Semitiism. You can give we the… Read more »
That’s the POINT of discussing something.
You got it exactly. If EVERYONE was registered and VOTED, our concerns would be taken seriously by the politicians, police and DA (who is supposed to charge them when caught).
Every heard of השתדלות? “Think good…” is afterwards, not in lieu of.
Register to vote SO DO IT ALREADY STOP TALKING AND JUST DO IT if you really mean it!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Attitudes of “Why vote, and why do anything” is what got of here.
Anyone with a better form of השתדלות than voting is welcome to share it. Otherwise סיג לחכמה שתיקה.
If everyone in CH voted, the politicians would make sure the District Attorney DOES HIS JOB.
Right now the DA is free to send criminals back to our streets, and he does.
Maybe you’re the same person, don’t know but, there’s definitely not 30,000 & probably not 20,000 registered legal jewish voters of voting age in Crown Heights. Your anger is misplaced, unnecessary & a bit excessive! There are many students & people here who are not citizens and Baruch Hashem many underage children included in the total population here. Think good, do good & it will be good! משיח כאן!
Since CH doesn’t (I do, but you don’t), why would they care what we want them to tell the police, the District Attorney, and black leaders about stopping the hate?
So nothing will make a difference. Don’t vote and don’t speak up.
Only you sitting at home and complaining and discouraging others from doing Hishtadlus. Now THAT will help us.
Pathetic.
It makes no difference if we vote or not either way they’ll do what they want and if jews stop voting it’ll hurt us even more. The police won’t help because anything they do to a black person comes back at them they don’t have the support from the city to do anything. And putting police on every corner would make things worse because blacks will say cops help Jews what about us? And then more attacks will happen and as some of you said the DA will let them walk. Making protest won’t help either because it will make… Read more »
Whine about the fact that the police don’t care, but don’t make Crown Heights have political power by being a bloc of 30,000 votes that the politicians won’t want to lose by alianating us.
It’s much easier to sit at home, complain, and do nothing. With people like you, is it any wonder that they don’t care about Crown Heights?
Stay home, complain, whine, and do nothing about it. Hypocrites.
To #15:
If C.H. had 20,000 votes each election the politicians (not wanting to lose our vote) would pressure the leaders to stop the hate against us, and they’d pressure the police to take us seriously, they’d pressure the district Attorney to not let these animals back on the street once caught!
I’m wondering if these white yuppies moving in and around crown heights get attacked as well. What we in Boro park did to stop crime around our area which was sorrounded on one side by Palestinian arabs on 8 ave and Puerto Rican’s on a second side and young Italian punks on the third side. We moved in 150 thousand Chinese all around us. Check it out. About 27 years ago we made a ring around Boro park with Chinese. Now the community is very safe. You in crown heights need to do the same. Landlords around the parks near… Read more »
Blow a few away…if they send more…blow them away also. They will stop sending them.
If they charge these two with a hate crime, the burden will be on the prosecutor to prove it was a hate crime, and anecdotal evidence does not hold up in court. These two monsters will walk free.
However, a robbery charge will easily hold up, and armed robbery with assault can carry a significant number of years in prison.
Again, unless they specifically said something along the lines of “Jew”, you can forget about a hate crime holding up in court.
The cops don’t care one bit what happens
They are big Jew haters themselves
They don’t care At all what happens to anyone
Especially the Jews
Time to open one. !!!!
Thank you Shomrim , the Resident that called and the police that responded.
I got the police view – they see young blacks and don’t want to ruin their lives long term.
Now is the time when the DA who keeps promising to stop anti-Semitism and protect us – to step up. I hope he will.
We may want to put political pressure from any possible angle Now before its open season on Jews.
The politicians would love if we vote.
They’d take us VERY seriously. While they campaign. And maybe for one day more.
Tachlis, this is the age old antisemitism and hatred that no voting will take care of.
אין לנו על מי להשען אלא על אבינו שבשמים
I can see where voting may influence politicians…but how does voting affect the culture of violence even among the Black community, and the – dare I use the word?- racism directed at Jews?? Hashem Yerachem.
The police will only work on this if there is media pressure.
If we block empire or eastern parkway they will pay attention.
We need to wake up and do something, now is the time!
Let’s not put blame on the victim, lets not put blame on the community for not voting. This is beyond ridiculous. If you feel that the politicians need to get into the action and our lack of voting isn’t helping, organizing protest can accomplish the same thing.
The real solution is to begin affecting the goyim. These people need to be civilized and Yidden are sent into this world to transform everything, especially the nations of the world. This is a message from Above that we need to step it up and spread the truth to anyone we can find. These goyim are literally attacking us because they are mad that we are not affected them to become what the Eibershter wants. MoshiachNOW
I’m afraid we’re in for a edgy summer, hope not. We need more achdus much more than voters! Do acts of kindness & goodness, do everything you can to bring משיח עכשיו please!
That was the best post/dvar Torah on this site!@
If they knew we all vote, they’d be afraid to lose our vote and would make sure we had protection, and that the District Attorney started doing his job when it comes to criminals in Crown Heights. (Currently he apparently doesn’t do his job, he just sends them right back to hurt more people after their caught.)
Look in the mirror and blame yourself.
If everyone in C.H. voted the politicians (who are in charge of the police) would take us seriously and the District Attorney wouldn’t let these animals back on the street to do more crimes.
It seems like every week now there’s another attack. And how dare anyone in the comments section on the original story post have the chutzpah to blame the Israeli bachur for carrying a pushka at night, as many commenters did! I can tell you one thing for sure, if this was the other way around (which of course it never would be) where Chasidic Jews in Crown Heights were walking up to blacks every week for no reason and punching them in the face, trying to strangle them, robbing them etc… it wouldn’t just be a local story that gets… Read more »
If everyone voted the politicians would pressure the police to take us seriously and the DA to punish the criminals properly.
Politicians only take communities seriously if they vote.
Same applies for the District Attorney letting these criminals that are caught back on the street.
If you don’t vote you can only blame yourself for this situation.
שיש כאלה דברים בארץ יש הפגנות ובאלגן ופה אנשים שותקים ולא עושים מאומה נחכה למקרה הבא לצערי
The police have to do something
BS”D BH he is ok
In a long history of crime in crown heights against Jews, the real perpetrators have been the police for enabling this.