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Teens stone Jewish children's bus in Brooklyn
Youths arrested in neighborhood historically wrought with tension between Orthodox Jews, blacks for throwing stones at bus full of toddlers heading for Jewish school; no injuries reported
Associated Press
Police say four teenagers have been arrested on hate crime charges for throwing rocks at a school bus full of Jewish toddlers in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights. The three girls and one boy yelled epithets last month as they broke windows on the bus. The children, who study at a Jewish school in the neighborhood, weren't hurt.
The case is part of a string of incidents that have stirred tensions between the large black and ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities of Crown Heights. The teens are all 14 and are black.
The tension has previously erupted in events that included an assault on a black college student and an attack on an Orthodox Jewish teen. A race riot also erupted in 1991 after a Jewish driver driving in a convoy of Chabad vehicles hit and killed a 7-year-old black boy. A 29-year-old yeshiva scholar was stabbed to death in the chaos.
The New York Police Department recently reported that a black man had been brutally beaten in one of the neighborhood's streets. A few weeks later a Hasidic youth claimed he had been attacked by two black teens while he was riding his bike. Immediately after the incident protests were staged by the Jewish community.
The renewed tension has sparked fear among the community leaders in Crown Heights, who became worried that the latest attacks would deteriorate into other shows of violence. Richard Green, who manages the neighborhood's interracial youth center, warned that just one event could cause the situation to become dangerous.
Police have increased patrols in the neighborhood's center and the areas populated by the Chabad community, in an effort to halt escalating violence. Hashmira, a Jewish neighborhood watch group, has also boosted its activity and hundreds of volunteers patrol the streets during the evening.
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