A driver passing a Hasidic Jewish school in Brooklyn verbally assaulted a group of Jewish people before getting up on the sidewalk and trying to run them down on Wednesday, police said, according to The New York Daily News.
There were no injuries in the incident.
The 58-year-old driver was zipping past Mesivta Nachlas Yakov School in East Flatbush around 11:25 a.m. when he made antisemitic statements to people outside, police said.
The man, behind the wheel of a white Ford Crown Victoria, then turned onto E. 55th St. and mounted the sidewalk, attempting to run the group over.
“He came once and then he came back,” an 18-year-old student told The Daily News on Wednesday evening. “The first time he came up on the sidewalk.
“He aimed at two of us but they got out of the way,” he added.
A video of the incident, shared by Yeshiva World News, showed the man driving directly at three people outside the school.
When the targets ran inside, the driver got back onto the roadway and left the way he came, the video shows.
Police officers were called to the intersection and took the driver into custody. Charges against him were pending as of Wednesday evening. His name was not immediately released.
The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident as a possible hate crime, according to The Daily News.
The incident comes amid a spike in incidents of antisemitism in New York following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel and the war in Gaza which followed.
Earlier this month, two Jewish children were beaten by an attacker while playing on a sidewalk in Brooklyn.
Two weeks ago, the windows of a popular kosher restaurant in New York City's Upper East Side were smashed by vandals following anti-Israel protests.