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Staten Island JCC to Host Hate Crime Forum After Bomb Threat

By Nicholas Rizzi | March 17, 2017 5:05pm | Updated on March 20, 2017 9:02am
 The Staten Island Jewish Community Center will hold a hate crime forum after it received two bomb threats this year.
The Staten Island Jewish Community Center will hold a hate crime forum after it received two bomb threats this year.
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DNAinfo/Nicholas Rizzi

WILLOWBROOK — The Staten Island Jewish Community Center will host a hate crime forum Monday night after the site received two bomb threats this year.

The forum will feature District Attorney Michael McMahon, members of the Staten Island Council of Jewish Organizations and other discussing the crimes as the country faces a rise in anti-Semitic incidents since the beginning of the year. 

It will be held in the JCC at 1466 Manor Road, which had to be evacuated twice this year because of bomb threats.

The first scare was Jan. 11, when workers found a swastika and a bomb threat painted on a wall inside the center, according to police and the JCC. Staff and members were evacuated and no bomb was found, police said.

On Feb. 27, a man called the Early Childhood desk at the same building and said a bomb was inside the building, according to police and the JCC. The NYPD conducted sweeps at the three JCC locations in the borough, but found no devices.

The NYPD had no new information on the investigations into the threat Friday afternoon.

Citywide, hate crimes have risen 113 percent so far this year compared to 2016, with more than half categorized as anti-Semitic, NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill previously said.

The rise in hate crimes is part of an increase of anti-Semitic incidents across the country this year including about 90 Jewish centers receiving threats and the destruction of Jewish cemeteries.

Juan Thompson, 31, a former journalist, was arrested by St. Louis police earlier this month and accused of making threats across the country — including an earlier one at the ADL'S Manhattan headquarters — to get back at his ex-girlfriend.

Investigators did not link Thompson to the two threats at the Staten Island JCC.

Mayor Bill de Blasio visited the Staten Island center earlier this month to denounce the problem and call for vigilance.

"This is a very troubling reality," de Blasio said. "This is a moment in time and a moment in history where forces of hate have been released, and it's exceedingly unsettling."

The hate crime forum will be on Monday, March 20 at the JCC, 1466 Manor Road, staring at 7 p.m.