Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz (D-Brooklyn) has asked Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson to charge the suspect arrested in the attack on Leonard Petlakh, executive director of the Kings Bay Y, with a bias crime.

The suspect, identified as Shawn Schraeder, was charged with assault in the third degree in the October 7th attack outside Barclays Center that left Petlakh with a broken nose and severe lacerations. Petlakh had just left the Nets-Maccabi Tel Aviv exhibition game with his children when he was attacked.

Assemblyman Cymbrowitz said he finds the fact that there’s no mention of bias in the charges “extremely disturbing” and asked that district attorney to direct the new head of his hate crimes unit, Marc Fliedner, to investigate.

In a letter sent to the district attorney today, Assemblyman Cymbrowitz noted that “Mr. Schraeder was part of a group of anti-Israel protestors whose intentions turned hateful and violent.”

“The attack took place amid a barrage of anti-Semitic slurs such as ‘You are child murderers’ and ‘Free Palestine,’” Assemblyman Cymbrowitz said. He also noted that Schraeder, “who disguises himself as Shawn Carrie on the Internet and made it known that he was at Barclays on the night of the attack,” has since taken took down his Facebook page and profile picture.

“As one of our city’s most prominent Jewish leaders, Mr. Petlakh wants the perpetrator who attacked him to be charged not just for the assault but for the anti-Semitic hatred that both precipitated and accompanied it. Mr. Schraeder did not attend the game as a spectator but as an instigator turned thug. He deserves the harshest penalty the law allows for this category of crime,” he said.

“I urge you to seek justice for the anti-Semitic attack on Leonard Petlakh and to vigorously pursue the accomplices who fled after the attack and bring them to justice as well,” he said.

(YWN Desk – NYC)