NYPD investigating possible hate crime after subway dispute in Brooklyn, NYC
The NYPD and the Justice Department Civil Rights Division are investigating a caught-on-camera verbal dispute involving Orthodox Jews that started on a subway platform and continued on the train.
Police said they responded around 8:40 p.m. on Monday to a 911 call of an assault inside a southbound No. 3 train at the Nostrand Avenue subway station in Brooklyn.
Two men in their early 20s said they were approached by two unidentified individuals who started yelling, grabbed them by their jackets and made verbal threats.
An official says a a group of eight young men who live and study at the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters on Eastern Parkway were headed back from Hanukkah in Union Square.
The group got into a dispute with two men at the Franklin Avenue station, where they transferred trains.
"F-- the jews," one of the men said at one point, according to the official. Then, one of the two suspects allegedly grabbed one of the victims, a young man in his early 20s, by the collar, pointed his finger like he was motioning a gun at his head, and said, "I'll kill you."
The group got off at the Nostrand Avenue station and called the police. Nobody was injured during the incident.
Following the incident, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon posted to social media calling for accountability.
"This is a deeply disturbing hate crime targeting young Chabad men on a train in New York, whose only act was sharing the light of Hanukkah. Such acts of hatred must be unequivocally condemned, and those responsible must be held accountable," Danon said in a post on X.
MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber also issued a response following the incident.
"This kind of hateful behavior has no place on the subway or anywhere, and is deeply offensive to New Yorkers," Lieber said. "The NYPD has access to video from train cars and stations to identify and apprehend the perpetrators, who should face maximum consequences from the justice system."
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