Four days after leading a violent mob against a journalist in clear view of NYPD officers, Heshy Tischler, the right-wing radio host and City Council candidate, was arrested by police outside his Borough Park home on Sunday night.
Tischler was charged with unlawful imprisonment and inciting a riot in connection with the assault of Hasidic journalist Jacob Kornbluh on October 7th, police said. Shortly after his arrest, Tischler's ultra-Orthodox supporters gathered outside Kornbluh's home, waving Trump flags and threatening him until the early hours of Monday morning.
Tischler, an outspoken Trump supporter and coronavirus denialist, has commanded the community's bubbling rage over Governor Andrew Cuomo's renewed lockdown measures, leading a string of protests that have erupted in violence against bystanders and journalists.
Within minutes of his arrest on Sunday, a post from Tischler's Twitter account revealed Kornbluh's address. Video shows hundreds of people gathered in the street and attempting to storm the building. A friend of Kornbluh's said the group stayed until 2 a.m.
Kornbluh, a veteran journalist with Jewish Insider, has drawn the ire of some in the community for his reporting on attempts to skirt social distancing restrictions during the pandemic.
On Wednesday night, Tischler urged a crowd to surround Kornbluh while chanting "moser" — a term for a Jewish informant, deserving of the death penalty, according to some religious texts. The mob repeatedly lunged at the reporter, pinning him against a wall, while kicking and spitting at him.
"Yeah he got beat up," one of the men involved in the beating told Gothamist afterward. "He's lucky to be alive."
During a separate protest the previous night, followers of Tischler attacked the brother of a well-known Hasidic whistleblower and swarmed a photojournalist documenting the scene.
Despite witnessing both altercations, police made no arrests and issued no summonses during either altercation.
On Friday, Tischler claimed he'd reached an agreement with NYPD to turn himself into police on Monday, after the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah.
According to Reverend Kevin McCall, a Black civil rights leader, Tischler had arranged with Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez to surrender alongside McCall. Authorities changed their mind, McCall said, after Tischler claimed in a video that he was reconsidering the offer.
"You're arresting me when we made a deal," Tischler can be seen shouting on Sunday night, as police dragged him away in handcuffs. "We made a deal that I was going to be arrested tomorrow."
Neither the NYPD nor the Brooklyn District Attorney have responded to questions on the record about the alleged agreement.
"This is serious crime," Rev. McCall told Gothamist. "If it was in a Black community, he would've been arrested immediately. Even after the mayor and governor called for his arrest, for him not to be in police custody says something about the New York City police department. Are they afraid of Heshy?"
Inquiries to Tischler's attorney were not immediately returned. He is expected to be arraigned on Monday evening.
Listen to WNYC reporter Arun Venugopal's radio story about last week's chaotic nights in Borough Park:
