Police in New York on Thursday confirmed that a 14-year-old boy had been arrested in connection with the savage assault on Joseph Borgen, a Jewish man who was set upon by pro-Palestinian thugs following an anti-Israel demonstration in midtown Manhattan on May 20.
The teenage boy, whose name was not released by the NYPD because he is a minor, was charged with assault, gang assault and menacing, all as hate crimes, and aggravated harassment.
The boy, who lives in Staten Island, is the fourth person to have been taken into custody since the attack. Police arrested 23-year-old Mahmoud Musa of Staten Island two weeks ago on charges of gang assault and hate crimes. Musa’s arrest came after the previous detentions of 25-year-old Faisal Elezzi, also of Staten Island, and 23-year-old Waseem Awadeh of Brooklyn for participating in the gang beating of Borgen. Awawdeh is alleged to have told prosecutors, “I would do it again.”
Interviewed in the wake of the attack, the 29-year-old Borgen emphasized that he had “been a proud Jew my entire life, I’ve lived in New York my entire life. Never once before was I accosted verbally or felt threatened by the fact that I was Jewish, for wearing a kippah, or anything of that ilk or that nature.”
He added: “In the wake of this incident, the amount of support from the Jewish community, from friends, family, and loved ones, has essentially just reinforced my faith in the people that are my brothers in this religion, just because they give me the strength to continue on.”