A 22-year-old man was arrested and charged with multiple hate crimes on Monday after he allegedly yelled “Free Palestine” and then slashed a Jewish man in the torso near a synagogue in Brooklyn, New York, police said.
Police allege that Vincent T. Sumpter, of Brooklyn, stabbed a 33-year-old man about 2 a.m. Saturday near the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a Hasidic Jewish sect.
Synagogue spokesman Yaacov Behrman told X that the attacker asked the victim “Do you want to die?” before stabbing him. Behrman said the victim had “longstanding ties” to the local community and was expected to survive.
A 33-year-old man was attacked and slashed in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Friday. Crown Heights Shumira, via X.com
Residents reportedly chased the attackers and held them until police arrived.
“This is an extremely serious incident. The victim could have been killed,” the spokesman said. “Let this incident serve as a warning of the possible consequences if this type of hateful rhetoric continues. When hatred and incitement against any group is preached it will inevitably lead to violence.”
Sumpter’s lawyer could not be reached for comment Monday.
A video posted by the X-account “Crown Heights Shmira” appears to show the stabbing. (“Shmira” means something like “protection” in Hebrew.)
In one video, two men in white shirts walk toward a man in a purple sweatshirt who steps back, then the man in the sweatshirt makes multiple stabbing motions with his right hand toward one of the men before quickly walking toward them.
One video shows a man who appears to have been stabbed holding his right hand to his stomach and walking backwards before disappearing from the camera’s view.
According to court records from the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, Sumpter is charged with attempted second-degree murder, attempted murder as a second-degree hate crime and assault as a first-, second- and third-degree hate crime.
Bail was set at $100,000 cash or $250,000 surety, officials said.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, there has been a sharp increase in anti-Semitic attacks in the United States in the three months following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Nearly three-quarters of Jewish college students in the U.S. have experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism on campus, according to a survey released by the ADL last year.
In May, a driver jumped the curb and nearly mowed down people outside an Orthodox Jewish school in New York City.
