The Times and Sun have articles this morning about the escalating tensions between Crown Heights’ black and Hasidic communities. The stories talk about how the NYPD has stepped up its presence on the area’s streets and politicians have been holding press conferences to decry the violence, all to try to prevent the neighborhood from once again becoming the war zone that produced the 1991 riots. The latest problems in Crown Heights began in April, when a black 20-year-old was attacked by Hasidic men in what the police have deemed a bias crime. Since then, black children have pelted a bus carrying Hasidic toddlers with stones and last week black youths beat and robbed a Jewish teen. The police believe the first attack against the black 20-year-old was done by someone with ties to a Jewish civilian patrol group called the Shmira. Bias crimes in the neighborhood are up this year; there have been nine so far, compared to seven at this time in 2007. Some Crown Heights residents say the city and politicians are overreacting to the spate of violence, according to the Sun, since “most of the culprits — both black and Jewish — are too young to remember the riots, and some community leaders say they are concerned that it’s actually the grown-ups who are stoking a conflict between the groups.”
Neighborhood Simmers With Tension Again [NY Times]
Threat of Another Riot in Crown Heights [NY Sun]
Photo by Frank Lynch.