According to a report, Manhattan prosecutors have filed hate crime charges against a 19-year-old who they say attacked an Israeli student at Columbia University with a broomstick handle.
The attack on a male student on Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus on Wednesday night resulted in the charges of second and third-degree assaults as hate crimes being filed against Maxwell Friedman.
According to the police, the suspect attacked the victim while he was putting up posters for information regarding the victims of Hamas’ terrorist strike in Israel.
According to the university’s student newspaper, an acquaintance of the victim said that the suspect attacked after an argument broke out between a group of students and the suspect about removing the fliers.
According to the criminal complaint, Friedman childishly yelled obscenities and made anti-white racist remarks, then challenged the crowd to do something about it.
During their altercation, the assailant, whose face was covered with a bandana, struck the student with a wooden object, fracturing one of his fingers.
According to a local report, the suspect had asked the pupils early in the day if they would assist him in placing the posters around campus.
Maxwell Friedman, a suspect from Brooklyn, was arrested and charged with four counts of assault for allegedly attacking a pupil with a wooden broomstick. The incident occurred after the 24-year-old student, as reported by the police, posted flyers on campus depicting Israeli deaths and captives.
Before her next hearing on November 28, Friedman will be on supervised release after being arraigned on Thursday and pleading not guilty to all counts. When the New York Jewish Week approached her attorney for comment, he refused.
According to NYJW, there have been heated debates on how universities should respond to pro-Palestinian speech as the conflict between the Hamas terror group and Israel has persisted. Jewish groups have also pushed for a stronger response. Due to what they saw as colleges’ inadequate criticism of the crime, several wealthy Jewish benefactors have canceled their support.
Although it was previously reported that Friedman attended Columbia, the institution has now clarified that she is not a student there.
