CROWN HEIGHTS — Two Jewish men were arrested and charged with a hate crime after attacking a black man walking his dog in Crown Heights Saturday night, throwing garbage cans at him while using racial slurs, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.
Crown Heights resident Dieuphene Hyppolite, 56, was walking his dog shortly before 7 p.m. Saturday night near Albany Avenue and Montgomery Street when Samuel Brendler, 21, and Ahrone Koskase, 22, began harassing him, throwing garbage cans towards him and punching him in the face, according to police and court documents.
The two also attempted to take Hyppolite’s dog and called him a racial slur, the documents showed.
"This is my dog. F--- you, you f---ing n-----," said one of the men, according to the complaint.
Police sources said Brendler and Koskase were intoxicated at the time of the assault. Hyppolite suffered cuts to his elbows and knees following the assault, police said, but refused treatment at the scene of the incident.
Both Brendler and Koskase were arraigned Sunday on multiple counts of assault as a hate crime, harassment and menacing, according to the Kings County District Attorney’s office. Each is being held on $5,000 bail.
The assault took place days before District Attorney Kenneth Thompson announced the creation of a new Hate Crimes Unit within the Civil Rights Bureau of the office, which will be led by Assistant District Attorney Marc J. Fliedner.
“Brooklyn is a great and diverse place to live, work or visit, and where the civil rights and dignity of all must be respected,” Thompson said in a statement about the new unit.
