The New York Police Department is searching for several hate suspects who targeted victims carrying Israeli flags in Manhattan this month, including a disturbing incident in which a man was hit in the face with a rock outside Columbia University. Police and related parties have revealed that this includes assault cases.
The latest attack occurred just before 10 p.m. Saturday near the Ivy League’s Morningside Heights campus, where three students were arrested and another taken away on a stretcher during violent anti-Israel protests that evening.
A 22-year-old man was holding an Israeli flag near Amsterdam Avenue and West 116th Street when another man ran up to him and snatched the flag, police and officials said.
According to the NYPD, the victim tried to follow an unknown man into the crowd, but was hit in the face with a rock by another man.
Police said a third unknown man “then grabbed the flag and set it on fire.”
This brutal attack occurred just two weeks after a similar incident was reported in Midtown.
According to police sources, on April 12, around 5 p.m., a 19-year-old woman was standing outside 39 West 34th Street when two unknown men approached her and forcibly took her Israeli flag. Ta.
The attackers, a woman and a man wearing headdresses, fled on foot eastbound on West 34th Street.
Both attacks are being investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force.
Police said there was no indication either incidents were related or that the five suspects were acting in conjunction.
