Hasidic man watches as a car goes up in flames at Kingston Ave. and Empire Blvd. late Wednesday during Crown Heights riots.
(Originally published by the Daily News on August 21, 1991. This story was written by Larry Celona, Ying Chan, Albert Davila, James Duddy, Patrice O’Shaughnessy, Maris Perlow, Tom Raftery, Ellen Tumposky and Don Singleton, and Dick Sheridan.)
Violent clashes among blacks, Hasidic Jews and cops rocked Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section yesterday, 24 hours after a station wagon carrying Hasidic Jews ran down and killed a black child and critically injured another.
In a string of confrontations that followed the incident, a Hasidic student was slain and at least 20 cops were injured and 16 people arrested on charges ranging from murder to disorderly conduct.
The roving bands of angry blacks, claiming ambulance crews gave preferential treatment to Hasidim at the scene of the accident in which the young boy was killed, marched through the streets of Crown Heights while squadrons of police kept them separated from Hasidic counter-demonstrators.
By 2 a.m. yesterday, hundreds of blacks and Jews had taken to the streets, and there was what Police Commissioner Lee Brown described as a standoff between 200 Hasidim and 200 blacks at the scene of the accident. Between 200 and 225 cops kept the groups apart.
At 3:15 a.m., an unoccupied police car was set afire.
By 6 p.m. yesterday, rival mobs of black and Hasidic protesters - perhaps 250 - had gathered outside the Empire Blvd. stationhouse, hurling rocks, bottles and insults at each other and police.
Later in the evening two shops on Utica Ave. - a sneaker store and jewelry shop - were broken into and looted, police said. The jewelry store was set afire. Police arrested six in connection with the incident, which occurred shortly before 10 p.m.
New York Daily News New York Daily News Archive coverage of Crown Heights racial violence on August 21, 1991.
New York Daily News New York Daily News covers Crown Heights crisis on August 22, 1991.
New York Daily News New York Daily News Archive coverage of Crown Heights racial violence on August 21, 1991.
New York Daily News New York Daily News covers Crown Heights crisis on August 22, 1991.
Leaders of the black community demanded that the driver of the car in the fatal incident be arrested and that two police officers, who they said roughed up the father of the young victim at the accident scene, be suspended.
The leaders walked out of a meeting with city officials, police and representatives of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes’ office, chanting, “No Justice, No Peace,” after the officials refused to act immediately on the group’s demands.
“The administration is not responding to any demands at this time,” mayoral spokeswoman Ruby Ryles said last night. “The police department is investigating to see what the appropriate response should be.”
Hynes said the circumstances surrounding the boy’s death would be presented to a grand jury. He also has sent an accident specialist to determine whether the station wagon ran a red light and how fast it was traveling.
At City Hall, Mayor Dinkins said, “There’s an awful lot to suggest he did go through the red light. We are in a tense situation… We’ve had a tragedy. There are at least two deaths, and it’s painful. We ought not to have further injury.”
And in a statement from Albany, Gov. Cuomo called the deaths “a terrible tragedy,” adding, “Expressions of hate and further acts of violence can only make it worse.
“We must all unite to seek understanding and a reasonable response, first by allowing the authorities to ascertain precisely what has occurred, and how the law applies,” Cuomo said. “There is cause for sorrow. There is no justification for causing great pain.”
Police stand ground between Hasidim and black protesters in racially tense Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
DAVID BURNS/AP Police in riot gear walk past a patrol car that was overturned in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., in this Aug. 21, 1991 photo, after two nights of racial violence between blacks and ultra-Orthodox Jews.
John Roca Police with helmets and shields stand ready during Crown Heights riots.
Police treat people injured in the rioting in Crown Heights.
Joe Major/AP In this Aug. 21, 1991 photo, New York City police scuffle with a protester during a march through the Crown Heights section in the Brooklyn borough of New York.
The Rev. Al Sharpton (left, center) and Sherman Cato, father of Gavin Cato, lead a protest march during the Crown Heights riots.
About 11:25 p.m. Monday, at Kingston Ave. and Union St., one of the roving gangs ran into Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, a student visiting from Australia. Rosenbaum was here doing research on a book about the Holocaust.
He was stabbed in the chest and died yesterday at 2 a.m. in Kings County Hospital.
Police arrested Lemerick Nelson, 16, of Linden Blvd., and an unidentified 15-year-old. A folding knife with 4-inch blade was recovered.
The chain of violence began about 8:20 p.m. Monday, when a station wagon that was part of a three-car caravan bearing Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, grand rebbe of the Lubavitcher sect, drove through the intersection at President St. and Utica Ave. A police car also was in the caravan.
Police said the station wagon mounted the sidewalk and struck Gavin Cato, 7, and his cousin, Angela Cato, also 7, both of President St.
Gavin, from Guyana, was dead at the scene. His cousin yesterday remained in serious condition at Kings County Hospital.
Police identified the driver of the car as Yosef Lisef, 22. His passengers were Jacov and Levi Spielman, 25-year-old twins.
According to witnesses, Lisef was speaking on a car phone at the time. He was not charged as of last night.
Police say an Emergency Medical Service ambulance and a private ambulance operated by Hatzoloh, a Hasidic service, arrived at the scene within minutes of each other.
“When the two ambulances got there, a crowd was forming, and they started to go after the driver, so the police instructed the private ambulance to take the driver away,” Brown said.
After the accident, cops said, blacks in the crowd said the ambulance crews had ignored the injured children to aid the Jews.
At 9:15 p.m., a 29-year-old black man identified as Alfred Sterling was arrested on weapons charges after he allegedly fired a shot at police from a .357 magnum pistol.
Paul Keith, age unknown, was arrested on charges of hurling stones into the crowd with a slingshot.
Deputy Mayor Bill Lynch led a 2 ½-hour meeting yesterday at Public School 167 in Crown Heights. The meeting, with 60 black and Jewish leaders and police, was “emotional, not angry” he said.
Brown said the unmarked were treated at Methodist Hospital and released.
He and his passengers police car, known as a house-of-worship car, was afforded the rebbe because of his status as a leader of the worldwide Lubavitcher organization. He has been the target of threats.