Surveillance footage captured the gel gun incidents.
By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner
Police in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, arrested three men accused of harassing members of the Hasidic Jewish community last week.
According to Yeshiva World, earlier in the week Shomrim, a Jewish community watch group, received reports that the men had driven around the neighborhood shooting Hasidic Jews with a gel gun from a white sedan. The group sprung to action, alerting the New York Police Department (NYPD) and assigning 50 volunteers to patrol the area to ensure a rapid response to the next incident.
The perpetrators soon struck again on Nov. 8 targeting a victim near Kent Avenue and Park Avenue. Shomrim’s officers were near the scene and straightaway alerted the police, who, having knowledge already of the make and model of their car, stopped it and arrested them.
Charges from the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force, which is processing the case, are forthcoming.
On Thursday, New York City councilman Kalman Yeger, told The Algemeiner that the incidents are a consequence of New York’s lax crime policies.
“This is typical of what’s happening in New York City: criminal activity being perpetrated by criminals who do not believe there are any repercussions for their crimes,” Yeger said during an interview. “And, if they get caught, they will in all likelihood be out if they’re not already out now and likely be punished with a slap on the wrist, emboldened to then go on and escalate and do something worse, until, at same point they do something so heinously violent that we look back and see that they could have been stopped.”
New York City has a 32 percent rise in overall crime over the past two years, according to city data.