The suspect (L) in a blue baseball cap and t-shirt, get walked out and encouraged to flee by the gathered crowd.

CROWN HEIGHTS [CHI] — Early Monday evening two Jewish women were accosted by a sicko on Kingston Avenue, one quick call to Shomrim and the pervert was apprehended, and arrested. Only to be released a few hours later without any charges.

Shomrim Apprehend Sicko, Police Make Arrest – Later let him go

The suspect (L) in a blue baseball cap and t-shirt, get walked out and encouraged to flee by the gathered crowd.

CROWN HEIGHTS [CHI] — Early Monday evening two Jewish women were accosted by a sicko on Kingston Avenue, one quick call to Shomrim and the pervert was apprehended, and arrested. Only to be released a few hours later without any charges.

The incident began on Kingston and Carroll at around 7:15pm, where the 24-year-old black male accosted victim 1, a Jewish girl, grabbing her arm and offering her ‘fun and drugs’, the girl fled into a shop and took refuge. Minutes later the suspect accosted victim 2, a Jewish woman, in just the same fashion.

That’s when Shomrim was alerted.

The suspect was followed until he entered Lefferts Park where he was apprehended and taken into police custody.

At the scene Shomrim volunteers got the feeling that the incident was about to go sideways when Inspector Peter Simonetti arrived at the scene and began asking the suspect if he was assaulted, or if he was hurt in any way.

Shomrim had the victims quickly brought over to identify their attacker, which they did, and the suspect was cuffed and taken into the precinct.

Brass in the Brooklyn South Task Force, who were in the neighborhood for the unity concert in Wingate Park, heard about the apprehension and arrest and passed along thanks and compliments to Shomrim for their great work.

Police interrogated the victims and came to the conclusion that there was no indecent conduct on behalf of the suspect, and that all he did was caress the victims arms, which does not constitute assault, and he was promptly released.

As Shomrim volunteers were in the precinct, assisting the victims, they ran into a community askon, and volunteer in Hatzalah, who told Shomrim to back down and let police release the sicko “because when we need police to help on bigger things we can then pressure them.”

”Police have to help us either way” said a spokesperson for Shomrim, adding “this askon really doesn’t understand how it works, if a person robs someone they get arrested for robbery, and if a person hits someone they get arrested for assault. Police cannot play favorites or favoritism.”

For one Shomrim member this incident served as a chilling reminder of an incident in which an askon got involved in a very similar fashion years ago, that proceeded with an incident in which a Jewish mother assaulted and murdered.

51 Comments

  • a concerned member of the shchunah

    Y. is not an askan just someone who’s nose is stuck so far up Simonnetti and Lenny Write’s behinds that as long as he can please them the community will suffer.
    we have to kick him out of Hatzolah and out of the community, he’s not an askan. he’s screwed over so many people’s marriages and put so many people behind bars.
    it’s a disgrace to use the title askan for someone like that.
    someone who breaks shabbos and yom tov to have people locked up.
    someone who just cared about his damn pride he’s a power hungry piece of garbage who is terrorizing our community.
    wake up and smell the coffee not their behinds

  • POLICE - MAY YOUR FAMILY BE TOUCHED

    POLICE – DON’T TELL ME THIS MAN HAD GOOD INTENTIONS!

    Thank you Police for making trash out of our girls and for clearly stating to the sickos that it is permissible to touch another person on the street in order to lead to something digusting and inappropriate!

    May the police’s wives, daughters and loved ones be “touched” on the street too!

  • POLICE WHAT TYPE OF MESSAGE TO BLACKS?!

    It is NOT Okay!! That Askon’s name should be publicized!!!

  • no surprises

    A few months ago a young girl was verbally assaulted in the most disgusting way & a group of cops on the corner stopped the perp and let him go. There is no justice for Jews…don’t you get it yet?

    By the way, in the interests of public service & notification, I’d like to know which moronic Askan said to stop making a fuss. Obviously, the victims weren’t his daughters!

  • Legal

    Just to clarify: Grabbing someone’s arm, touching and/or hitting is called “battery.”

    The Legal definition of “Assault” is when you make a threat to someone and (intend to) put them in a state of fear.

  • they let him go

    he looks like the same guy that tried to make me give him my number on shabbos

  • rachel

    thanks to shomrim for not feeling beat down by the police and still doing hteir amazing work even when the police are completely not cooperating-at least we know we have someone to rely on-keep up your good work and dont give up!!!
    hashem should protect all of us

  • Hebrew Hammer

    Guys and girls, we need to learn self defence. Facial reconstruction surgery will cause guys like Richard Sicko here to think twice before doing anything like that again.

  • ohis vorrff

    what chutspa , the police are really taking sides , it feels like we have no chance , only g-d can protect us here , , but i must say , g-d bless the shomriem who put them selfs on the line every day 4 us .

  • ohis vorrff

    shomriem have to teach men woman and students how to use mase or pepper spray

  • Cheif Espisito

    If we discover any perversion of Justice in the 71 Heads will roll, starting from the top on down;;;;;;;;;

  • antimesira

    Time to give Inspector Peter Simonetti the pink slip.
    All this guy has done since coming here was bully shomrim around.
    He tried to make the good guys in to bad guys and the bad guys in to good guys. Thank G-d he failed miserably. Now hes stuck with the bad guys, they are all his, enjoy the babysitting.

    As the Shomrim member said:
    ”Police have to help us either way” said a spokesperson for Shomrim, adding “this askon really doesn’t understand how it works, if a person robs someone they get arrested for robbery, and if a person hits someone they get arrested for assault. Police cannot play favorites or favoritism.”

    Well said. The law is the law no matter is you black or white, Jewish or other.
    I hope there isn’t a chart up in the precinct with how many Jew and and blacks were arrested in order to keep a balance.

    I hope the police calculation [in this case] wasn’t that too many arrest were made because of Shomrim involvement and therefor we must let him go before people [the other community] protest or Shomrim gets to much credit, because that would be an injustice to justice.

  • Big J

    There is no such thing as battery in New York. According to the NYS Penal Law assault involves an injury and causing a person to be annoyed, alarmed or fearful is harassment. Harassment is a violation, a non-arrestable offense unless observed by a Police Officer.

    Knowledge is power and alot of the “legal talk” I read on this board is just ignorant.

  • victim 1

    What a way to tell a story. I am girl 1. I was standing on the corner talking to a friend. He came over to us, started talking and would not go away as much as we asked him to. He did not grab my arm or offer me any drugs. He made as if he knew us from somwhere and made vulgar comments. He touched my arm as I tried to back away and I told him not to touch me. At that moment, a male friend of mine walked by and came to the rescue. I did not run anywhere or call shomrim. My friend intimidated him away.

    Shomrim contacted me and asked me to come down to the police station for 5 minutes which turned out to be almost an hour. Shomrim leter joked that it was the only way to get me to come and tell my story. I was asked to repeat the story 3 times and I didn’t not even identify the man.

    Blowing stories out of proportion is lying to the community and only creating more racism which is comepletely unacceptable. Shomrim is a wonderful concept and I am grateful to them for trying to keep us safe and out of harm, but sometimes they are just a bunch of boys looking for action and drama. Everyone should be careful with what they read in the news… Take everything with a grain of salt! And never accuse and jump to conclusions!

  • Grow up!

    Ok first off…I don’t live in CH (but I used to) where I live there are AFRICAN AMERICANS and they do that stuff all the time. People in CH let their racism against AFRICAN AMERICANS get way out of hand. And why is he a sicko? Because he’s “black” and said something to a couple people. Grow up. This is 2010.

  • cover up

    Why is shomrim covering up for this “askin” by not revealing who he is? Where are our newly elected leaders on this?

  • Legal 2

    Legal– The state of NY has no battery law. It would be an assault if anything. Learn some law before you talk

  • Itamar Rosenblatt

    I work at Rikers Island and have done so for 2 years. I understand when a Jew gets hurt or harrassed that they deserve to be arrested. However, I have a hard time understanding what crime this individual did. Is what he did stupid? Yes. Is what he did annoying? Yes. Possibly intimidating? Yes. However, under New York City law, what he did doesn’t fall under harassment, and definitely not under assault. I’m all for fighting for our rights as Jews, but maybe, just maybe it is important to pick your battles. Even if he was processed after arrest, most likely the judge he saw in the morning would throw the case out or give him a dollar bail. Because, again, he didn’t do anything illegal.

    If I walk up to a black person, touch their arm, and ask them to come along w/ me for some fun, is that a stupid or annoying thing to say? Yes. If I did it in an agressive manner would it be initimidating? Maybe. But is it a crime? No. The legal system has paramaters as to what is a crime and what isn’t to prevent people from being arrested for nonsense. If it wasn’t for these paramaters I could easily call the police on numerous of my fellow Jews for being rude, obnoxious, and pushy. But we don’t, because there are paramaters in place to prevent that.

    Sometimes it’s important to think before you start yelling.

  • anonyomus

    Victim 1, it appears from your account of things that the published story hardly deviates from your own account of things. You say that he did not grab you, he only touched you as you backed away, and that’s called grabbing. And you left out the part where you started screaming for help.

    You say you did not call Shomrim, the article says that Shomrim was only alerted to the incident after Victim 2 was attacked.

    You say you spent an hour at the police station, contrary to the five minutes you were told it would take, well that’s life. Would you prefer to spend two days in a hospital bed, then two months in physical recovery, then another lifetime of emotional recovery?

    Your liberal attitude stinks of your own obvious and glaring bias and distain towards Shomrim and CHI.

    I don’t know where you come up with the idea of racism being involved, but that stands to support my perception of your liberalistic ‘kumbaya lets make love to everyone attitude’, the guy could have been Hispanic, White, or even Jewish for that matter, it would have not made a difference, shomrim would have chased him down and help getting him arrested just the same.

    Read this story if you have any doubts: http://tinyurl.com/2cnhsrt

    Fact is that around 20 years ago J.B. Speilman downplayed this exact sort incident in which a woman was accosted in the exact same fashion you were, only this guy escalated and went on to rape and murder. I know you are selfish and self centered, just like Y. B. who coached you at the precinct and told you to let it go. But the next time this guy strikes it’s on you.

    Oh, and did you know, he lives on Kingston and St. Marks, so it wouldn’t be too long till then.

  • Ariyeh Leib Segall

    Time to hand out Pepper And Mace spray to all the Women & Girls in the community…
    Sickos only understand these types of responses…
    NYPD has a history of ignoring these incident…

    It’s time to take back the streets from these animals…!!!!

  • engry bist

    Mr Engry Bist.

    you are not elected to lead this community

    please stay away from the politics.

    if i am not mistaking there are 3 elected officials to our vaad hakohol and you not one of them.

    Thank You

  • Itamar Rosenblatt

    To “anonymous”,

    Of course you are going to leave yourself anonymous after saying such disgusting things to the victim of a crime. Who are you to say it’s her fault if he harassess someone else? Who are you to judge her? How could you possibly know what it’s like to be in her shoes? All you are is a coward who won’t even sign his name to his opinion.

    Wow.

  • Huge Problem

    A good friend of mine was verbally harrassed and run after on union street some months ago& since she was alone, the police started telling the perps how they could try pressing charges againt HER for having called the police. She was later helped out by someone in the community who interceded. This place is not safe for girls.

  • Legal 3

    STOP! You’re both right. “Legal” is talking civil law. Lawsuits involving money damages (dinie mamonos) between one person and another. “Assault” is threatening and a “battery” is touching. Criminal law is different. Each state’s legislature defines its own criminal laws as it sees fit. In NY CRIMINAL law, there is no “battery” and “Assault” consists of touching, only if resulting in serious injury.

    Unfortunately, the NY State definition of a criminal assault is so high that the acts described in this article probably do not rise to assault. There is however a lesser offense of “menacing” in NY law. But even this requires a reasonable “fear of death, imminent serious physical injury or physical
    injury” by the victim. The police could have tried to pursue the pervert on this lesser count. However, police are lazy about arresting and prosecuting for this as it is a minor misdemeanor.

    A prior commentator is correct in that a previous failure to prosecute a pervert for a minor crime where the victim escaped unharmed, later resulted in the assault and murder of a chassidic mother in Crown Heights.

  • Chaim H.

    To: 21. Itamar Rosenblatt

    Please explain the following statements…
    “Of course you are going to leave yourself anonymous after saying such disgusting things to the victim of a crime.”

    1. I read and reread comment 18. by anonyomus and I dont see anything disgusting So please explain yourself.

    2. You seem to be offended because someone is telling off a victim of a crime but your not offended that this victim (no.1) played down this attack (to victim No.2).

    All comment 21. is doing is statement some facts and instead of dealing with the facts you think you can get away with insults (and getting personal).

    I would also like to remind you that Shomrim are volunteers, they are our fathers, brothers, uncles, neighbors and friends. All Shomrim VOLUNTEERS have jobs and responsibility, they don’t have to do what they do. They don’t need to help anybody, but they do.

    It seems your problem is more with Shomrim then with the guy who harassed you and for that shame on you.

  • disgusted

    To 22

    You’re sicker than the guy who did it! Blame the victims….always the woman’s fault, right? Tell me, when was the last time you beat your wife???

  • antimesira

    To: 18. anonyomus

    You should be the one to get locked up for “hurting someones feeling”. ;)

  • victim 1

    Let me clarify.
    He did not grab my arm. He touched it moderately.
    I did not scream for help or run into any stores. My friend and I asked him to leave multiple times and that was when a male friend of mine came along and intimidated him to walk away.
    I went back up to my apartment and sat down to eat dinner with friends when Shomrim called me and told me that this guy continued down Kingston after my encounter with him and harassed another woman. He asked me to come down to the police station to identify the man. I did not want to go but I was afraid for the safety of other women in CH and he promised it would just be 5 minutes so I went. The police tried whatever they could to find a way to keep hold of him, but he had not done enough. I ended up being there for almost an hour, and when i asked about the 5 minutes, shomrim joked that he lied to get me to come in. I did not find it funny.
    Itamar Rosenblatt, I like what you wrote. Thank you.
    In response to anonymous comment 18, I do not chas veshalom for one moment think badly of shomrim, on the contrary I appreciate very much that they are here and protecting us. However, you were not there so you don’t know that I did not downplay the story at all, ch.info actually did the opposite to create big breaking news. I feel more violated by ch.info than anyone else right now… bc they used me for a story. You wanna tell my story, go ahead, but tell the truth, maybe you did not know it, so here, I clarified it.

  • h in the ch

    NOBODY TELLS YOU HOW TO RUN HATZOLAH STOP INTERFERING WHERE YOU AIN’T WANTED

  • Sam the Internet Troll

    @ Legal …

    Actually, my first year law student friend, New York has no crime called “battery.” Here, we just call it “assault” and there are three degrees – all of which involve the intentional infliction of physical harm on someone …

    If there was no physical harm, there can be no “assault” …

    Also – you made the classic mistake when it comes to common law assault – it’s actually not about the creation of “fear” at all …

  • Itamar Rosenblatt

    To Chaim H:

    You don’t know the facts of the case. Read what the actual victim wrote. I believe the victim herself is more trustworthy than the popular news.

    I don’t understand why you think I have a problem w/ Shomrim. I never said anything bad about Shomrim. I think the guys in Shomrim are heros for the help they give the community.

    My problem was with Mr. “Anonymous” who seemed to be bashing the victim of a crime. I thought it was heartless to do so.

  • Shame on...

    “I feel more violated by ch.info than anyone else right now… bc they used me for a story.”

    Who are you, the post above doesn’t even have a name, your comments doesn’t even have a name, who can you possibly feel violated.

    And about the Hour thing. How many times do you have to wait for over an hour at the doctors office when you clearly had an appointment for a a specific time. Here when it comes to possible Pekuach Nefesh stop whining about your hour, so it took an hour and you were told five minutes, oy gevald!

  • CH.info not the source of racism.

    To Victim #1:

    “…and only creating more racism which is comepletely unacceptable.”

    No, their persistent abhorrent behavior creates racism, not CH.info.

    I am continually shocked, that even in religious circles, that Jews continually confuse their progressive political ideology for being Judisam.

  • Esquire, Montreal

    In the States unwanted caressing would be “assault” whereas in Canada it can be considered “sexual assault”. A complaint must be made to the highest levels of the justice authorities that police are not doing their jobs, i.e. enforcing the law and that the police should be censured in the strongest terms. What is more worrisome is that instead of protecting victims they are becoming pseudo-advocates.

  • well done

    now we have a feud between Shomrim and hatzolah, Great! word to the wise, you don’t want to bark up that tree, Hatzolah has the most credibility of any group or organization in Crown heights.

  • Shomrim and Hatzolah Great people

    T0 38.

    Baroch Hashem there is no feud between the two very good organizations.They both have very good people doing very good things.

    Hatzolah has the most credibility when it comes to Hatzolah issues. As does a fireman does when it comes to fire.

  • big brother

    what love i see in these comment between jews…. what a family…. clearly need some therapy…

  • Victim 6

    what establishes the person writing as VICTIM 1 as the actual victim?

    So some nobody is writing a comment pretending to be the victim, i can do the same.

  • Anonymous

    The police make the rules as they go along. I had a problem of black neighbors smoking drugs right outside my door in my apt building. Every member of the police dept from the community affairs, to the POs to the narcotics all had a different story about whether it was legal or not. One guy said it warrants a summons. Another guy says they can’t do anything unless the PO sees it with his own eyes regardless of evidence or witnesses. Yet another (the guy from narcotics) said it’s only illegal to sell drugs not use drugs. However, in other places smoking drugs in public is against the law regardless of who it is or who saw it without question.

    Our police dept do as they please. Carressing a woman against her will in the street is sexual abuse whichever way you look at it. All then fancy law jargon that the police use is a bogus excuse to avoid making the arrest to save their stats. You can say it’s not assault, but it is a crime. You can’t just go over to a stranger and carress them. That is sexual abuse. If you don’t believe me, let’s see a lubavitcher man with a hat, beard, and tzitzis go over to a shvartze lady and carress her in the street against her will. The police will try locking the guy away for 10 plus years R”L.

    We need our newly elected Vaad Hakohol to stand up to this foul play and hold the police accountable. Bloggers like myself do not have the resources tp dp that. It is our elected officials who have to. Until now the Vaad Hokohol has had the approach that we need to be nice to the police so that they like us. What nonsense! We need to hold them accountable so that they won’t molest us like they have been doing for the past few years. We can be diplomatic but they have to know that if they are not fair they will pay for it.

  • to #41

    tell me something while i do agree that it is possible for somebody to pretend to be the victim when really he/she is not why would somebody want to do that?why would a person want to pretend to be a victim when really he/she isn,t?what would a person gain from doing something like that?oh by the way from the way it looks it does look pretty much that comment #13 was typed by victim 1.

  • Victim 3

    Hi im victim 3 I apologize for the late comment.
    I’m at the hospital with a broken nose and a fractured hip; I was beaten, raped and left to die.

    This is what will happen if you think lightly of this issue.
    He gets away once he will try again he gets away twice he will never stop.

  • #18

    Just reading your comment makes me wonder what is going on in crown heights that breeds people like you.You write with utter contempt,disrespect and attacking the author.Its time you grew up and discover the art of having a proper discussion.Hatzlacha in discovering the better you

  • Wake up, Yidden!!!!

    An important point is being ignored here. The article states:

    “At the scene Shomrim volunteers got the feeling that the incident was about to go sideways when Inspector Peter Simonetti arrived at the scene and began asking the suspect if he was assaulted, or if he was hurt in any way.”

    This is SIGNIFICANT!!! In the 71st, if a Yid makes a complaint against a person of color, “in order to prevent riots,” the policy (unwritten of course!) generally is to charge neither of them, or to charge both of them.

    If this had been a black-against-black incident, do you think the HEAD OF THE PRECINCT would have shown up, inquiring of the perp as to whether the PERP felt “assaulted or hurt in any way”?????

    I personally witnessed the 71st send THREE squadcars — that’s SIX officers — when a Yid called to complain about a person of color spouting and screaming anti-Jewish epithets ON THE YID’S OWN PROPERTY. The “officers” ended up putting the YID in handcuffs and booking him! And each — the Yid and the ranter — was given a summons (but the person of color was never handcuffed or booked!). PS — The 71st never sent the YID’s summons in to the court system; it just disappeared, and never became a police record against the Yid, B”H, which proves the police victimization of the Yid was spurious.

    WAKE UP CROWN HEIGHTS YIDDEN!!!!

  • John Espinoza

    This person harrased the young lady’s is there no law against felony harasment? What if it was your child? He should have a restraining order served to him by the young lady’s parents.

  • Itamar Rosenblatt

    To “anonynous” #44 (why is everyone scared to put their names?
    touching someone’s arm is not Sexual Abuse and/or Sexual Assault. If it was, there would be millions of people being arrested and booked every day.

    To “wake up yidden” #48 I agree w/ you, an inspector generally never gets involved w/ a case unless a regular cop, a lieutenant, and a detective all can’t handle it. An inspector showing up for such a small crime is suspect.

    W/ regard to the other matter, it is hard to understand why someone would be arrested on their own property after having a complaint against someone else on their propery. What was he arrested for? What was he charged with? Why was he handcuffed? Did he get completely out of hand and need restraint?

  • qwerty

    your supposed to interrigate the suspect and interveiw the victim!- not the other way round!