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Hasidim Protest Cellphone-While-Driving Arrest
By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 5, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 5, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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A mob of angry Hasidim took to the streets outside a Borough Park police station, starting fires and protesting the arrest of a 75 year old man. The Hasidic man, Arthur Schick, had been talking on a cellphone while driving - which is against the law - and police officers decided to haul him in when Schick refused their orders to show his license and registration. When the police tried to handcuff him, two men intervened (a community activist told WABC 7 that the police officers had assaulted the man). Angry onlookers turned into hundreds of protesters, who started fires with cardboard boxes, trapped a cop in his car, yelled "Nazi Germany" and even prevented a tractor trailer from traveling down the road (check out this NY Post picture of a crowd surrounding a female police officer and her car). Two police officers were injured, and many people, including, Schick and the two men who intervened, were arrested. CBS 2 says some suggest the "on-going ticket blitz" had also angered the community.
In 1978, Hasidim protested what they felt was slow police response to a stabbing. Back in 1991, there were the Crown Heights race riots - caused after a Hasid driver killed a black child - resulting in the fatal stabbing of a Jewish scholars. And some Satmar Jews started fires in Williamsburg in 2004 to burn women's wigs that were made of Hindu hair.
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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