The livery driver whose two-gun attack on a group of Hasidic students on the Brooklyn Bridge shocked the city 18 years ago has finally admitted that he targeted them because they were Jewish, The Post has learned.
Rashid Baz was convicted in 1995 of murdering Yeshiva student Ari Halberstam, 16, and trying to kill more than a dozen others in a van with a hail of bullets he fired on a Manhattan approach to the bridge on March 1, 1994.
Baz initially told cops he opened fire because of a traffic dispute. But in 2007 Baz finally confessed that he targeted his victims, tailing their van for about two miles before the shooting, an admission that had never been made public until now.
Since Baz is already serving a minimum of 141 years in state prison, authorities believe there is no reason to pursue hate-crime or other new charges, law-enforcement sources said.
In his confession, Baz said he first saw the van outside the Manhattan Eye and Ear Infirmary, on East 14th Street, where Lubavitcher spiritual leader Rabbi Menachem Schneerson was undergoing minor surgery.
He said he followed the van and targeted the occupants because of an earlier West Bank attack by Israeli settlers on Muslims. Asked if he would have shot at a van of black or Latino people, he told the investigators, “No, I only shot them because they were Jewish.”
(Source: NY Post)
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8 Responses
There is something new about this?
This is old news!
He never claimed to be an equal opportunity, bias free, assassin.
It is important to retry him for a hate crime in order to prevent the possibility of a presidential pardon.
Which President, in his right mind, would pardon this guy, especially after todays report.
Our President
Bill & Hillary pardoned the puerto rican terrorists. If Obama loses this November he may pardon such people either out of anger or under the guidence of his advisor/friend reverend write & company.
As wacky and as he is, he isnt crazy.
First of all, how can he be retried when he’s already been tried and convicted? This doesn’t create a new crime.
Second, how would a conviction on a hate crime prevent a pardon?
And third, he’s doing state time, not federal, so how could Obama pardon him? The only one who can pardon him is Cuomo.
just because he’s in jail isnt a reason not to put him back in court and for this to be on record as this will/ should send a message to others contemplating such crimes