A 22-year-old man was arrested and charged with multiple hate crimes Monday after, police said, he yelled “Free Palestine” before he slashed a Jewish man in the torso near a synagogue in Brooklyn, New York.
Police alleged that Vincent T. Sumpter, of Brooklyn, stabbed the 33-year-old man around 2 a.m. Saturday near the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a branch of Hasidic Judaism.
Yaacov Behrman, a spokesperson for the synagogue, said on X that the attacker also asked the victim, “Do you want to die?” before he stabbed him. The victim, who has “long-standing ties” to the community, is expected to survive, Behrman said.
Residents chased the attacker and detained him until police arrived, he said.
"This is an extremely serious incident. The victim could have been killed," the spokesperson said. "Take this incident as a warning of the potential consequences if such hateful rhetoric continues. When hate and incitement against a group are preached, it invariably leads to violence."
Sumpter’s attorney could not be reached for comment Monday.
Videos posted by the X account Crown Heights Shmira appear to show the stabbing. ("Shmira" means, among other things, "protection" in Hebrew.)
In one video, two men in white shirts walk toward a man wearing a purple sweatshirt as the man backs away. The man in the sweatshirt then appears to make multiple stabbing motions with his right hand at one of the men and then briskly walks toward them.
The man who appeared to be stabbed puts his right hand over his abdomen as he walks backward and out of view of the camera, one video shows.
Sumpter is charged with second-degree attempted murder, second-degree attempted murder as a hate crime and assault as a hate crime in the first, second and third degrees, according to court records from the Brooklyn district attorney's office.
His bail was set at $100,000 cash or $250,000 bond, officials said.
Antisemitic attacks in the U.S. rose sharply in the three months following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Nearly three-quarters of Jewish college students in the U.S. experienced or witnessed antisemitism on campus, according to a survey the ADL released last year.
In May, a driver jumped a curb and tried to mow down people outside an Orthodox Jewish school in New York City.
