Police arrested a man in connection with a violent anti-Jewish hate crime on Staten Island, NYPD officials said on Thursday.
The department said Obadiah Lashley, 29, was taken into custody on Wednesday for allegedly striking a 25-year-old man in the head with a metal bat after making an anti-Jewish statement.
The attack comes amid a steep uptick in ethnic and religious hate crimes since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, according to the NYPD’s hate crimes dashboard.
Police said the victim was a driving instructor and had been waiting for his client to return to the car on Grandview Avenue in the Arlington neighborhood around 2:30 p.m. on Monday. The instructor was wearing a dark-colored yarmulke when Lashley approached, according to police.
Officials said the victim did not know Lashley, who lives about half a mile from where the attack took place.
The victim, whose name has not been released, was taken to Staten Island University Hospital with a laceration to the back of his head, the NYPD said.
Lashley initially ran north on Grandview Avenue, and police released a photo of him wearing a blue jacket and holding a yellow-tipped metal baseball bat.
Officers caught up with Lashley around noon on Wednesday, and he was charged with hate crime assault, criminal possession of a weapon, aggravated harassment and menacing.
Information for his lawyer was not immediately available.
From Oct. 7 through the end of 2023, 161 anti-Jewish hate crimes were reported in the city, according to police data.
By contrast, a total of 165 anti-Jewish hate crimes were reported citywide for the prior 10 months of the year.
Anti-Muslim hate crimes also experienced a sizable uptick after Oct. 7, with eight anti-Muslim incidents reported for the first 10 months of 2023 and an additional 18 reported from Oct. 7 to the end of the year.
The 121st Precinct, where Lashley allegedly carried out his attack, recorded nine hate crimes in 2023. Six were categorized as anti-Jewish.
Out of the 45 hate crimes the…
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