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‘This time I’m really gonna do it’: Officials release more details on planned attack at NYC synagogue
By
Samantha Max
Published Nov 21, 2022
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Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
By
Samantha Max
Published Nov 21, 2022
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Jewish organizations helped law enforcement thwart a potential attack at a Manhattan synagogue after learning about antisemitic threats on social media late last week.
Police arrested two men shortly before midnight on Friday whom they believed were planning an attack against Jewish people after receiving a tip from the United Jewish Appeal, according to a spokesperson for the group.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority officers arrested the men at about 11:40 p.m. Friday at Penn Station, after authorities learned about a potential threat earlier in the day, according to police and a criminal complaint from the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Multiple law enforcement agencies were on the lookout for the two men, who were allegedly planning to take the Long Island Rail Road.
Christopher Brown, 21, and Matthew Mahrer, 22, both received multiple state charges of criminal possession of a weapon and a firearm, according to the criminal complaint. Brown — who has also been charged with making a terroristic threat — is being held in jail without bail, while Mahrer is being held on a $150,000 cash bail or $300,000 bond, officials said.
The DA did not immediately respond to emailed questions about whether it was considering hate crime charges.
Law enforcement said they recovered a Glock-style pistol, a large-capacity magazine, 17 bullets and a military-style knife with a blade that was more than four inches long. Brown was also allegedly wearing a Swastika arm patch, according to his criminal complaint.
The DA’s office wrote that Brown had made multiple threats on Twitter in the past week, including, “Big moves being made on Friday,” “Gonna ask a Priest if I should become a husband or shoot up a synagogue and die,” and “This time I’m really gonna do it.” The Twitter account has since gone offline.
According to the complaint, Brown told an investigator that he and Mahrer went to Pennsylvania to buy a gun — a decision he said he’d been considering for three years. Brown allegedly said that he has a “sick personality” and had been contemplating using the gun to kill himself. He also allegedly told law enforcement that he has Nazi paraphernalia in his house, which he called “really cool” and operates a white supremacist Twitter group.
Mahrer’s family declined to comment on his behalf. The Legal Aid Society, which is representing Brown, also had no comment.
Law enforcement did not immediately release additional details about the planned attack. Both local and federal law enforcement are investigating the case. No decision has been made yet regarding potential federal charges, according to the FBI.
“This story could have ended in tragedy but thankfully did not,” said MTA CEO Janno Lieber, whose father came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1941 to escape Nazism and whose grandmother died in the Holocaust.
“You can imagine my reaction when I heard from City Hall late Friday night that there were people with Nazi Swastika armbands using our MTA transit system, which I’m privileged to oversee, using our transit system en route to planned attacks on synagogues,” Lieber said.
Scott Richman with the Anti-Defamation League said social media has helped to stoke hate toward Jews and other minority groups, at the same time that polarization and extremism are on the rise. He said the ADL’s Center on Extremism had discovered and downloaded hundreds of hateful Tweets on Brown’s account before it disappeared.
“People have approached me in the last couple weeks and said, ‘What’s going on in these last few weeks?’” said Richman, ADL’s regional director for New York and New Jersey. “This is a general rise in antisemitism and hate that’s been going on for a decade. This isn’t about just the past few weeks.”
A rise in antisemitic hate crimes and incidents has also put some members of the Jewish community on edge. FBI data show that there were 959 reported anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2020, the last period of available data, compared to 702 in 2015. The ADL’s latest audit of antisemitic incidents found there were 2,717 such incidents across the U.S. in 2021, up from 2,026 the year prior.
The threat to New York City’s Jewish community comes on the heels of an FBI warning to synagogues across New Jersey, which ended with the arrest of an 18-year-old earlier this month. It also follows recent antisemitic comments from Ye, the musical artist formerly known as Kanye West, and the suspension of Brooklyn Nets player Kyrie Irving, after he posted an anti-Jewish film Twitter. His suspension ended Sunday, after he apologized.
Mayor Eric Adams declined to talk about specific cases of antisemitism when asked about Irving’s and West’s recent social media posts at a press conference Monday morning. Instead, he urged social media companies to do a better job of regulating their platforms.
“Social media has become a platform that has assisted with the organizing and the growth of hate in our country and on the globe,” he said, citing its influence in this case and in a mass shooting in a Buffalo supermarket this past spring. “They need to become more responsible.”
Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have both promised to ramp up security for the Jewish community and other potential targets of hate crimes. State Police will also be monitoring potential threats online, the governor’s office said in a press release.
"Here in New York, we will not tolerate violence or bigotry toward any community,” Hochul said. “We stand united against hate — today and every day."
Elizabeth Kim and Clayton Guse contributed reporting.
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Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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