The New York Police Department (NYPD) is looking for several suspects after two Jewish men were sprayed with fire extinguishers in separate incidents, police said Tuesday.
The incidents are being investigated as part of a pattern of hate crime assault, police said, and the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating.
A group of people allegedly approached a 72-year-old man and sprayed him with a fire extinguisher early Sunday morning in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, according to the NYPD.
The video shows someone approaching the man from behind and spraying him with the fire extinguisher. The person stops spraying, runs out into the street and then appears to try to follow the man to spray him again before running away about 10 seconds later.
Police said no words were exchanged before the incident and the suspects fled immediately. The victim was not injured.
“A guy ran after me and started spraying,” said the victim, who was not named, in an interview with the CNN WCBS. “I tried to walk as fast as I can.”
Surveillance camera video shows someone with a fire extinguisher walking towards the man and spraying him twice for several seconds.
At the same time and about 10 minutes’ walk from the first incident, according to police, a group of people reportedly approached a 66-year-old man. A person sprayed the man with a fire extinguisher and punched him, police said.
The group fled after the incident and the victim refused medical attention at the scene.
There were no arrests in any of the incidents, police said.
New York state leads the country in anti-Semitic incidents, with at least 416 reported cases in 2021, including 51 assaults – the highest number ever recorded by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in New York. There were 12 reported assaults in 2020, the ADL said in an audit last week.
A total of 2,717 anti-Semitic incidents were reported last year across the country – a 34% increase compared to 2,026 in 2020, according to the ADL.
The League has been tracking these incidents since 1979 — and its previous reports found that anti-Semitism in America has been on the rise for years.
Attacks in the US last year included that of a Jewish man in New York City who was beaten and kicked while anti-Semitic slurs were hurled at him, who was on his way to a pro-Israel rally in Times Square on May 20.
Source: CNN Brasil
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