Frum Brooklyn kids commit hate crime in Brooklyn

NEW YORK POST

ANTI-ARAB' BASHING RATTLES BROOKLYN

AP

November 5, 2006 — The alleged hate-crime beating of a Pakistani man by a group of Jewish teenagers has disturbed the city's Muslim community and spurred calls for a federal investigation.

Prosecutors have charged five teens with hate crimes in the beating of the 24-year-old Muslim man, Shahid Amber, last weekend.

Amber says he was eating ice cream outside a Dunkin' Donuts near his home on Sunday night when a group of 10 to 15 youths wearing yarmulkes began taunting him, calling him a "terrorist."

"One of them, he spit in my face," Amber said in a phone interview Friday. "As I was cleaning my face, I noticed a punch coming at my face with brass knuckles on it."

The five defendants – Yitzi Horowitz, 15, David Brach, 15, Yossi Friedman, 17, Shulomi Bitton, 16, and Benjamin Wasserman, 16, all from Brooklyn – have been charged as adults with several crimes, including menacing and assault as a hate crime.

Irit Bitton, mother of Shulomi Bitton, said last week that her son was not biased.

"My son was just standing over there and he did not touch anybody," she said. "He's a sensitive boy. He wouldn't even kill a fly. I believe my son 100 percent."