A man who shouted racist, antisemitic slur at mispalelim at the Ohel Yaacob shul in Deal last weekend is now facing bias crime charges, after Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Lori Linskey added them to his rap sheet.
“Members of the Deal Police Department responded to the Ohel Yaacob Congregation at the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Ocean Avenue North at approximately 1 p.m. on Friday, July 15 on a report of an unknown person recording himself with a cell phone while making obscene gestures and screaming profanity-laced ethnic and homophobic slurs and threats at synagogue congregants,” Deal Police said in a statement following the incident.
“The hate-filled rhetoric heard last Friday in what is typically a peaceful neighborhood with a tight-knit Jewish community wasn’t just abhorrent and disturbing – it was criminal,” Linskey said. “The charges being announced today should send a clear message that we take such conduct with the utmost seriousness. There is no place for hate in Monmouth County – especially when it is the motive behind a crime.”
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5 Responses
Regarding the title- Lawrence and ocean ave on monmouth county is in Lakewood, not deal
The alleged perpetrator is obviously crazy – he does not understand that there can be no homosexuals davening in a frum synagogue.
What was the charge? Nothing in this article indicates that he committed any crime. Certainly expressing antisemitic views isn’t and can’t be a crime in this country.
The link to the Lakewood site gives a little more information. It says he was making “terroristic threats”, but doesn’t specify what those were, so we can’t judge whether the charge is justified or not. I greatly suspect that nothing he said broke the law, and that the arrest was illegal and a brazen violation of the first amendment. But I can’t know that for sure, since I don’t know what he said.
Actual threats, “true threats” as the law calls them, are illegal. That is one of the recognized exceptions to the first amendment. But to qualify as an exception the definition of a threat must be very narrow, and most things that YWN would call “threats” do not qualify. If what he said didn’t qualify then he can sue the city and the individual policemen for violating his civil liberties under color of law, and they will not have qualified immunity.
Your Friend, Lakewood is in Ocean county, BTW.
Milhouse, why in the world would you give this scumbag the benefit of the doubt and throw around accusations of wrongful arrest? Would it surprise you if it turns out the perp shouted actual threats? It would certainly surprise me if he didn’t.