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Anti-Semitic Driver Drops "KILL JEWS" Notes Around NY
By
Ben Yakas
Published Nov 3, 2010
Modified Nov 3, 2010
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Nov 3, 2010
Modified Nov 3, 2010
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Once a Jew-hating note scribbler, always a Jew-hating note scribbler it seems: Demetrios Apolonides was arrested by police yesterday on a hate crime charge of aggravated harassment for writing threatening, anti-Jewish notes on torn up vouchers and dropping them around Long Island. This isn't the first time Apolonides has done this dance though: it took the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force 16 months to catch him earlier this year for a similar crime.
Apolonides dropped more than 100 paper slips with “Kill the Jews” scrawled with a black Sharpie pen around the city at dozens of locations. Jewish Week describes how police were stumped for months trying to connect the dots, but it eventually turned out Apolonides was dropping the notes in the same communities where he dropped off fares while working for the XYZ Luxury Sedan Service out of Park Slope. He was tailed, and investigators saw him throw the messages out the window of his car several times. They were most perturbed by how normal he was otherwise: Apolonides had no criminal record, no ties to hate or terrorist organizations, and was even friends with Jews. He was fired from his job at the car service immediately after.
For his recent note-dropping, Apolonides had shortened his scribbles to the more succinct "KILL JEWS."
Tagged
anti-semitic
car service
Demetrios Apolonides
driver
hate crime
jew
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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