A terrifying video shows a masked man attempting to rip a six-year-old Hasidic Jewish boy from his father’s arms in broad daylight as they walked down a Brooklyn sidewalk on Saturday.
At around 3:30 p.m. in Crown Heights, the boy’s father was holding hands and walking down the sidewalk with his two sons when the masked assailant approached them and snatched the boy.
The person who wanted to take the child, who looks to be over six feet tall, lifted the child into the air. The child’s father quickly pulled the child out of the crazy person’s arms.
The religious Jewish man then hits the man in the mask in the stomach.
The attacker ran away on foot, and police sources confirm that no one was hurt.
The 71st precinct is in charge of the investigation, which is still going on. As of right now, no one has been caught.
A representative for Shomrim, a private police force that serves the Jewish community in New York City, said that the attacker and his victims did not speak to each other before or during the attack.
It is not clear why the man went after the child.
“This video is shocking,” Yaacov Behrman, a Chabad PR rep, wrote on X.
“There must be something going on in Crown Heights because there have been so many incidents in the last two weeks,” he said.
Crown Heights is a major hub for New York’s ultra-orthodox community, and it is not uncommon for violent attacks to happen for no reason.
An angry man yelled “Free Palestine” and then attacked a Jewish man, Yechiel Dabrowskin, viciously. He was stabbed in the stomach and had internal bleeding.
Vincent Sumpter, 22, was arrested and his bail was set at $100,000.