Cops released photos Wednesday of a man who they say spat on a 14-year-old Brooklyn boy in a suspected hate crime.
The suspect, who was last seen wearing a multicolored jacket, blue jeans and black sunglasses, was riding a bicycle when he approached the boy from behind and spat on him around 5:50 p.m. near Eastern Pkwy. and Albany Ave. in Crown Heights on Oct. 22, cops said.
The spitting cyclist didn’t say anything to the victim as he continued pedaling heading west on Eastern Pkwy. The spit landed on the victim’s black hat, which was a part of his traditional Hasidic garb.
There were no injuries in the incident.
The NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident and continues to try to track down the suspect, who is described as a light-skinned Black man in his 30s.
The boy went home and told his mother about the incident. She, in turn, contacted her mother, Devorah Halberstam, who became an activist after her son, Ari Halberstam, 16, was shot to death in an anti-Semitic terror attack in March 1994 while riding in a van on the Brooklyn Bridge with fellow yeshiva students.
Halberstam, who sits on a civilian panel that helps the NYPD review hate crimes, said that while her grandson was shocked by the crude assault, he suspected right away he was targeted because he’s a Hasidic Jew.
“We live with it all the time,” Halberstam said of anti-Semitism. “It’s our universe. I don’t want to say nothing’s changed but, sadly and honestly, anti-Semitism has not gone away. It means the fight continues.”
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477)
