NYPD Apprehends Staten Island Man Behind String of Anti-Semitic Attacks

The New York Police Department announced the arrest on Wednesday of a man wanted in connection with a string of anti-Semitic incidents in late May that culminated with the tossing of an incendiary device that injured a woman in Midtown Manhattan.

According to the NYPD Hate Crimes Unit, Mohammed Othman, 24, of Staten Island, N.Y., was seen on video tossing the device from the back of a pickup truck on May 20 as it drove through the “Diamond District” on 47th Street, where many Jews work, particularly Orthodox Jews.

A 55-year-old woman who was walking by at the time was burned in the attack. Othman is being charged with three separate anti-Semitic hate-crime assaults, all of which occurred on the same day.

The arrest comes a day after the NYPD released its latest crime statistics that show anti-Semitic attacks on the rise in the city, up some 60 percent over 2020 with more than 110 incidents to date.