After a month of searching, police finally made an arrest in the February hate crime stabbing that left a Hasidic man with a collapsed lung. And they found the suspect because he was already in police custody for allegedly stabbing two men in a Brooklyn park on Wednesday night.
On February 10th, police say that Yehuda Brikman, 25, was in front of 646 Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights when he was "stabbed on the left side of his back by an unknown person. When the victim turned around, he saw a male running on the street away from him."
Police released surveillance video and images (right) of the suspect and offered a $12,500 reward while the Anti-Defamation League offered a $5,000 reward. There were concerns the incident was connected to the stabbing of an off-duty Hatzolah worker in November.
Then, on March 9th, a jogger in Prospect Park was slashed by a man near East Drive and Lincoln Road. The jogger suffered defensive wounds as the suspect fled. NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said of the first stabbing in Prospect Park, "He went up and stabbed someone out of the blue with no real provocation for that, no argument." Then, a man in the park near Parkside and Ocean Avenues was stabbed in the stomach and robbed.
Keny Rochelin, 26, was soon found by police officers responding to the park stabbings, and the victims identified him as their attacker. For the Crown Heights stabbing, he was charged with attempted murder as a hate crime, aggravated harassment as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon.
Boyce explained, "Nothing was said. It was out of the blue, just like the first one was last night in the park. He went up and stabbed an individual in the back. That individual was wearing religious garb. He was a Hasidic male. So we’re charging it as a hate crime right now."
ADL New York Regional Director Evan Bernstein said, "We saw firsthand how this horrific crime shook the Crown Heights Jewish community to its core. We commend NYPD for diligently pursuing the party responsible for last month’s terrible stabbing."
Rochelin lives in a homeless shelter on the Upper West Side; his sister apparently lives near Prospect Park. NYPD Chief Steven Powers told NBC New York, "Unless he has the exact same shoes, the exact same clothing, we definitely got the right guy."