Nearly a week after the deadliest attack ever committed against the Jewish-American community rocked Pittsburgh and the entire nation, the New York Police Department has arrested the man believed responsible for creating hateful graffiti and setting fires at numerous locations in Brooklyn.
26-year-old James Polite is charged with four counts of criminal mischief as a hate crime and making graffiti.
Polite has been sent to Woodhull Hospital for psychiatric observation, authorities say.
He is also charged with a string of arson fires in Williamsburg, including one at a yeshiva and another at a Jewish banquet hall.
Polite, who law enforcement vaguely describes as “emotionally disturbed” and “nonverbal,” was apprehended with this help of security volunteers and surveillance footage.
The eight fires that Polite is accused of starting caused more terror than anything, thankfully; as shown in the video above, none of the fires were set indoors.
(Eight) locations, allegedly in front of [...] yeshivas and synagogues within the predominantly Hasidic community, had fires set in front of and inside trash cans. The damage was minor, police said.
Polite is also accused of the vile graffiti that made headlines long before the arsons did, due to the immediate and high-profile impact of the crime.
Graffiti inside the Union Temple on Eastern Parkway in Prospect Heights [...] was written in black marker inside a stairwell, and the vandalism forced the cancellation of a political event because people felt threatened.
A "Get out the Vote" event hosted by “Broad City” actress liana Glazer was canceled as a result.
"What was scary was that it was all over the building, and then the cops were kind of searching the building," Glazer said. "It was too freaky. It was too freaky to hold it."
Polite faces a slew of hate crime charges in addition to the arson and vandalism charges.
Meanwhile, the most deplorable members of the right—both everyday citizens and elected officials, such as Donald Trump, Matt Gaetz, Steve King, and Ted Cruz—continue to blow their anti-Semitic dog whistles in their constant attacks on the left. A quick visit to Twitter shows that their is a strangely...celebratory air among Trump supporters right now.
Why? Because not only is James Polite a black man, but he’s also believed by some to be a queer foster care alumnus and former intern for the Democratic Party, according to a December 2017 New York Times profile of a man of the same name, racial background, and age.
The Daily Caller’s Luke Rosiak, for instance, wrote what he surely considers is a hard-hitting, lib-owning “exposé” on Polite, implying that his racial identities somehow negate Democratic efforts to combat hate.
Before knowing his identity, politicians said the vandalism demonstrated why voting Democratic was needed and highlighted government programs to combat such incidents.
Combating hate will always matter—regardless of who does the hating, and who commits the crimes. The fact that Polite is black, and possibly queer, has nothing to do with the necessity of voting Dem on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, NYPD tells ABC7 that an estimated half of all hate crimes in the city are aimed at Jewish people; 2018 has also shown an increase in anti-Semitic crimes, both in the Big Apple and across the nation. The Anti-Defamation League’s research indicates that between 2016 and 2017, the U.S. saw the “largest single-year increase” in anti-Semitic incidents since the ADL started tracking such things in 1979.
This year, show the Republicans that racism, anti-Semitism, and hate is not a winning combination. Help give Democratic candidates and the House and the Senate a last-minute push.
And it is never too late to volunteer. Or … okay, it’s too late after the election, but it’s not too late now so … volunteer!