Timeline: How the 1991 Crown Heights Riots Unfolded
A station wagon driven by Yosef Lifsh, hit another car and careened onto the sidewalk at 8:21 p.m. Monday, August 19, 1991.
Lifsh was part of a three-car motorcade carrying the now-deceased spiritual leader of the Lubavitcher Hasidic community, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, home from a weekly police-escorted visit family at their Queens gravesites.
The station wagon crushed two black children, 7-year-old cousins Gavin and Angela Cato.
Within minutes, an ambulance from the Hasidic-run Hatzolah ambulance service and two from the city’s Emergency Medical Service arrived.
An angry crowd gathered. Cops radioed for backup, reporting that the station wagon driver and passengers were being assaulted. Officer Nona Capace ordered the Hatzolah ambulance to remove the Hasidic men from the scene.
The children went by separate city ambulances to Kings County Hospital. Gavin Cato was pronounced dead; his cousin survived. A rumor quickly spread that the Hatzolah ambulance crew had ignored the dying black child in favor of treating the Jewish men.
Ignited by the false story, resentment exploded into violence. Groups of young black men threw rocks, bottles and debris at police, residents and homes.
Five blocks away from the crash scene, at 11:20 p.m, 29-year-old Australian scholar Yankel Rosenbaum was attacked by a dozen or more black youths. He was stabbed four times. Cops quickly collared Lemrick Nelson, 16, who was identified by Rosenbaum as his attacker.
Rosenbaum was expected to recover. Mayor David Dinkins, New York’s first black mayor, visited the hospital bed. But by 2:30 Tuesday morning, the Australian was dead because the Kings County staff overlooked one of the knife wounds.
Street violence raged for three days. On Thursday, cops finally restored order. Ultimately, 43 civilians and 152 police officers were injured.
After several trials, Lemrick Nelson was eventually convicted of violating Rosenbaum’s civil rights and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
THAT-S ALL HE GOT
ONLY 10 YEARS WHAT A SHAME
Want to see
To #1
It’s not over for Lemrick Nelson… what goes around comes around.
Nelson was stabbed recently in the head with an ice pick. He has yet to feel what is coming to him.
We already know the 1991 riot story. What I would like to see is an in-depth analysis of how in the world could our community allow this pogrom to go on for 3 days without some kind of serious intervention, and why was David Dinkins not put on trial for telling the police to stand down.
ceo
alot of what happened was related to people who werent’ even sure what really happened, didn’t care about the outcome, and were/are at the “mercy” of the mainstream media who skew their information how they want it for their own selfish needs. it was pathetic from everyone’s point of view, it did not have to be that way.
Mendy Hecht
Notice that they don’t mention Al Sharpton leading packs of dancing, prancing, you-know-whats chanting “Kill the Jews!” through the streets. No, no mention of that. Historical revisionism at its worst.
Yid Vicious
No, Mendy, I don’t know what. Care to elaborate?
not in CH
I was very sad few days , we saw what cowards our police are.
anonymous
nice. nelson got 10 yrs for killing someone and rubashkin gets 27 yrs for financial fraud. what a whacked system.
David Dinkins - NYC-s worst mayor ever
David N. recently expressed his concern that his obituary will define him in terms of his failure in handling the riots. If only he was as concerned with the people of Crown Heights during the riots half as much.
Stinkin’ Dinkin’s was known for not wanting to “step on black toes”, and that is why there was a soft response to the riots for 3 days. Same thing with the black Korean merchants boycot. His action or inaction was always predicated on not antagonizing “his people”, his electoral base. If the cost was the suffering or injustice to another segment of the NYC population or the city as a whole so be it.
History has already judged him correctly, as a rotten, weak, inept mayor who felt himself beholden to one segment of the population at the expense of the rest. That’s what should be in his obituary. Hope to read it soon, YM’S.
Att. Yid Vicious (?!)
If you really don’t know what, perhaps this website is not designed for you.
Remember Yankel
The article says that Yankle Rosenbaum died because because the Kings County staff overlooked one of the knife wounds.
I clearly rembmeber accounts at the time saying that he died because he was left for hours without treatment. Can anyone clarify?
Setting the record straight
Don’t call them “riots”. Call it what is was – a POGROM!
Goyim don-t have b-chirah
Scholer’s and historiens will now be studying the reasons that spark riots. They are already delivering the junk lectures about minorities not getting fair treatment as a the cause of the London riots. So now they will be studying the CH riots. But their theories range from the price of real estate to political power to the price of tea in china to the city census. College kids will be fed the brooklyn bridge on this one.
Why do people riot?
a) real estate becomes too expensive
b) unequal treatment of minorities
c) frustration with racial profiling
d) ongoing unfair police treatment
Go on, liberal histories!! keep it coming, I’L be adding the theories to my list! and then we’L have it published by the TIMES!
Shmuel
No mention of Fat Al? CHUTZPA!
David Dinkins
David Dinkins only told the police to protect the Jews in Crown Heights after Rabbi Moshe Sherer Zt’l & Rabbi Butman threatened to officially ask Governor Coumo to declare a state of emergency allowing him to send in state troopers. Faced with such a slap in the face, and facing reelection the next year, he let the cops do their job. My aunt told me she never felt so safe in Crown Heights as she did after the riots, as there was policeman on every block!
Jane
Why do people riot?
a) real estate becomes too expensive
b) unequal treatment of minorities
c) frustration with racial profiling
d) ongoing unfair police treatment
————
This is why whites rioted against blacks? Crown Heights was a hate crime. Yankel Rosenbaum=Emit Till