A 12-year-old boy was slapped with hate crime charges Wednesday in the disturbing caught-on-video beatdown on two Hasidic Jewish boys around his own age in Brooklyn earlier this month, law enforcement sources said.
The pre-teen was picked up late Wednesday morning and charged with aggravated harassment and assault – both as hate crimes – in connection to the May 12 evening attack on the boys at Franklin and Myrtle avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant, authorities said.
The Jewish boys were among a group of about a dozen playing in front of a condo building on Franklin Avenue near Myrtle Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant just before 9 p.m. when the young Citi Bike-riding suspect set upon them, according to the video, obtained by Williamsburg 365 News.
“On video we see him riding back and forth on the sidewalk past this group of boys,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters at a briefing last week. “They’re kind of hogging up the whole sidewalk. So there was some kind of interaction between the perpetrator who seems to be either a light-skinned male black or male Hispanic, with the Hasidic kids.”
“He gets off the bike, walks up to the group, states, ‘Get off the sidewalk,’ and then begins to assault the two boys as the rest of the group runs away towards safety,” Kenny added.
The attacker shoved one kid to the ground before knocking another to the pavement and kicking and stomping on him, according to the clip.
The victims suffered minor cuts on the backs of their heads.
The youngster placed in cuffs Wednesday is being charged as a juvenile, sources said.
Cops had initially said the suspect did not make any specifically antisemitic statements.
It was not immediately clear why hate crime charges were filed, though the department had said after the incident that its Hate Crime Task Force had investigated the case.
