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Suspect in custody after 5 stabbed at rabbi’s home in New York, officials say Suspect faces attempted murder charges after 5 stabbed at rabbi’s home in New York, officials say
(about 1 hour later)
Authorities say a suspect is in custody after five people were stabbed Saturday night in New York in an attack that Jewish leaders say shattered Hanukkah celebrations at the home of a rabbi. A man barged into a rabbi’s New York home with a long knife and stabbed five people Saturday night, officials and witnesses say, shattering Hanukkah celebrations and renewing fears of attacks on the country’s Jewish community.
Officials have yet to announce a motive in Saturday’s violence in the town of Monsey, but the incident comes in the wake of other attacks decried as anti-Semitic. Police in the nearby town of Ramapo said just after midnight that a man who fled the scene was in custody as investigations continue. The suspect faces five counts of attempted murder and one count of burglary, according to police, the Associated Press reported.
The victims, all Hasidic Jews, were taken to local hospitals, according to the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council in Hudson Valley, which said the stabbings occurred at the home of Orthodox Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg just before 10 p.m. Yossi Gestetner, the Council’s co-founder, said Rottenberg’s son was among the victims. Officials have yet to announce a motive in the stabbing in Monsey, but New York leaders were quick to call it domestic terrorism and to denounce anti-Semitic attacks in the wake of other violence against members of the Jewish community.
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) said he was “horrified” by the “latest in a string of attacks against members of the Jewish community in New York this week.” New York City leaders said Friday that police would increase their patrols in several neighborhoods in light of anti-Semitic violence, and earlier this month, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said suspects in a shooting at a kosher deli in Jersey City “held views that reflected hatred of the Jewish people, as well as the hatred of law enforcement.” People who were at the scene of the violence, which occurred in a town about 30 miles north of New York City, told reporters of a weapon nearly the size of a broomstick and a perpetrator with his face obscured by a scarf who ran past the man who answered the door, stabbed guests as people tried to fend him off and then fled the scene.
Cuomo said he is directing the State Police’s hate crimes task force to investigate the stabbing. The victims, all Hasidic Jews, were taken to hospitals, according to the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council in Hudson Valley, which said the stabbings occurred at the home of Orthodox Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg just before 10 p.m.
“Let me be clear: anti-Semitism and bigotry of any kind are repugnant to our values of inclusion and diversity and we have absolutely zero tolerance for such acts of hate,” he said in a statement. One victim remains in critical condition with wounds to the head, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) said Sunday. Rottenberg’s son was among the victims but is recovering, Cuomo said.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day said law enforcement response was “immediate and effective.” He called the attack a “heinous crime." The governor denounced the attack — the 13th incident of anti-Semitism in the past few weeks, he said — as “intolerance meets ignorance meets illegality.”
“This is an intolerant time in this country,” he said Sunday. “We see anger, we see hatred exploding. It is an American cancer in the body politic.”
New York City leaders said Friday that police would increase their patrols in several neighborhoods in light of increasing anti-Semitic violence. Earlier this month, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said suspects in a shooting at a kosher deli in Jersey City “held views that reflected hatred of the Jewish people, as well as the hatred of law enforcement.”
“Let me be clear: anti-Semitism and bigotry of any kind are repugnant to our values of inclusion and diversity and we have absolutely zero tolerance for such acts of hate,” Cuomo said in a statement.
On Sunday, he renewed calls for New York to become the first state in the country with a law on domestic terrorism. A proposal he advocated earlier this year would treat mass shootings motivated by attributes such as race and national origins as punishable by as much as life in prison without parole, similar to terrorist crimes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also condemned Saturday’s attack in Monsey.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day praised law enforcement for an “immediate and effective” response to a “heinous crime."
“Getting such a horrific call in the midst of a local holiday celebration is a stark reminder that even in a community as good and serene as ours, evil can visit us,” Day said in a statement. “Violence of any kind will not be tolerated here in Rockland.”“Getting such a horrific call in the midst of a local holiday celebration is a stark reminder that even in a community as good and serene as ours, evil can visit us,” Day said in a statement. “Violence of any kind will not be tolerated here in Rockland.”
Almost a third of Rockland County’s population is Jewish, and the Orthodox community there has grown to thousands of families in recent years, according to Jewish groups.