CROWN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn (PIX11) — An Israeli man is recovering and speaking out after a heartbreaking and hateful attack in Crown Heights this past weekend.
According to police, he was stabbed while the suspect shouted: “Free Palestine!”
The brutal stabbing was captured on surveillance footage, but the victim says what you can’t hear also hurts deeply.
The suspect is said to have shouted: “Free Palestine… do you want to die today?”
Michel Dobruskin was recently released from hospital after doctors said he narrowly escaped death.
“That guy wanted to kill me. He wanted to kill me,” Dobruskin said.
He was stabbed in the chest on August 10 in what prosecutors called a hate-motivated crime. The man seen on video attacking Jewish men on Kingston Avenue has been identified by police as 22-year-old Vincent Sumpter. Sumpter has been charged with attempted murder as a hate crime.
“After October 7, you see what happens in Manhattan. ‘From the river to the sea,’ he said, referring to an anti-Semitic refrain often sung by protesters. “Where are the Jews going?” Dobruskin asked.
According to the NYPD, anti-Semitic crimes have increased 19% this year, with 330 complaints through June.
“It happens every day on the subway, in the city, everywhere,” Dobruskin told PIX11 News.
Violent acts of hate are nothing new to the city or this family. Exactly five years ago, Dobruskin’s uncle was attacked. Rabbi Abraham Gopin was hit on the head with a paving stone.
The family, devout Jews from Israel, are not deterred from returning to the city, though it does make them hesitate. “I’m afraid,” Dobruskin said. “Now it’s a very bad place for Jewish people.”
Prosecutors effectively beefed up the charges against Sumpter by adding the hate crime statute, meaning he faces a minimum of 15 to 25 years in prison if convicted. He is currently being held on $250,000 bail at Rikers Island.
To have friends a fundraiser started that the victim and his family pay the medical bills and expenses related to the incident.
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