Montreal, Canada – Police have arrested a 24-year-old man after he punched a Hasidic teenager outside the Skver-Toldos Orthodox Jewish School in Outremont, but police deemed the case a "simple assault" and released the perp.
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The man was ordered to appear in municipal court July 9 at 9 a.m. to answer to the assault charge, Montreal police Constable Robert Mansueto said.
Police arrested the man after he punched the 16-year-old youth in the head on Bloomfield Ave. near Ducharme Ave., Mansueto said.
Skver-Toldos's entrance is the same school that was firebombed on Sept. 2, as was reported here on Vos Iz Neias, but nothing suggests that this incident was anything more than a common altercation, police said. "There is no evidence this is a hate crime," Mansueto said.
The 24-year-old told police he thought the teen was somebody else, Mansueto said.
The teen's uncle said that his nephew was shaken up, but returned to school yesterday.
Officers released the man they arrested after confirming his identity and determining he did not pose a likely threat, Mansueto explained.
Video footage from a security camera at the school shows the boy walking along the middle of the street, then being approached by someone who punches him hard enough to knock him to the ground. Memmbers from Montreal Hatzolah and others surrounded a car that the attacker briefly returned to after the assault, but the assailant then fled on foot, police arrested him a few blocks away. [The Gazette – VIN]
The beating of a Quebec Hasidic boy has been caught by surveillance footage just outside the Skver Toldos Jewish School, the same institute firebombed last September.
Jewish groups said the attacker likely targeted the 16-year-old victim because he was Hasidic, but police have said there is no evidence to suggest the incident was a hate crime.
“It’s just devastating to have events continually happening to the cultural communities in Quebec, and everybody pretending this is in the normal course of events,” Jeffrey Boro, President of Quebec’s Canadian Jewish Congress, told CTV Montreal.
The attack happened in broad daylight Thursday afternoon. Security footage shows a man in a white shirt approaching the victim and then punching him in the face.
Police have not called the incident a hate crime, partly because they say there were no threats made against the boy.
Witnesses of the attack called 911 and police arrested a 24-year-old suspect getting into a taxi.
According to police, the suspect said he allegedly attacked the boy because he mistakenly thought he had flirted with his girlfriend.
But Boro said the attacker may have targeted the youth because of his appearance.
“Considering the victim’s dress, it is reasonable to fear that the crime was motivated by hate,” he said in a press release.
He added: “While one boy bore the physical brunt of the attack, the entire Jewish community feels the pain. We extend our sympathies and support to the family of the young victim.”
The suspect is expected to appear in court on July 9.