Overview
- Two separate attacks on Manhattan’s Upper West Side left a 57-year-old Asian man and a 50-year-old Jewish man wounded in broad daylight on Thursday and both victims are expected to survive.
- Police arrested 51-year-old Raul Morales within an hour and prosecutors charged him with multiple counts including attempted murder and applied hate-crime charges to the assault on the Jewish victim but not to the attack on the Asian victim.
- Victims and witnesses told investigators the suspect shouted the Arabic phrase “Allahu Akbar” during the incidents and detectives executed a search of Morales’s apartment collecting weapons and books described as a Quran and a Che Guevara biography as evidence.
- Officials said Morales has no known NYPD mental-health history yet investigators are examining whether mental health played a role as they build a case that will require proof of bias to sustain the hate-crime counts.
- Jewish and Asian community leaders and elected officials demanded accountability and stepped up calls for safety measures as the incidents deepen concern about a recent rise in anti-Jewish and other bias crimes across the city.