An orthodox Jewish man walking down the street in London, England, was allegedly chased by a knife-wielding suspect who called him a "f***ing Jew" as he walked to work and threatened to behead him.
The Metropolitan Police said in a statement that at around 10 a.m. local time on Monday a Jewish man was threatened by another man in Dunbridge Street, Whitechapel, who had a knife.
Police arrived at the scene and arrested an as yet unnamed 34-year-old man on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offense. "A knife was recovered from the suspect, who remains in custody," the police statement said.
Nizza Fluss, a Conservative councillor in the north London borough of Barnet, told the Evening Standard that the victim, who is in his 40s, is "absolutely traumatized" by the incident and has not been able to return to work. It was not clear how Fluss knows the victim.
"A man started running behind him saying 'I'm going to kill you, I'm going to chop your head off,'" Fluss told the Standard. "He saw that he took a knife out and he started running away, he was just running for his life."
Fluss added: "I'm so upset. I can't function, he's such a nice, lovely person and is a very religious man."
Tower Hamlets Police, the Metropolitan Police subdivision in which the incident occurred, did not respond immediately to Newsweek's request for further information about the suspect.
Fluss also did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
A recent report by the Community Security Trust, a Jewish charity, found that there were 1,652 anti-Semitic incidents in the U.K. during 2018, a record high and a 16 percent annual rise. It was the third successive annual increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents.
In London alone, there were 950 incidents in 2018. "Three years of rising anti-Semitic incidents shows the scale of the problem facing the Jewish community," David Delew, chief executive of the Community Security Trust, said at the time.
"This is happening across society and across the country and it reflects deepening divides in our country and our politics. Jewish people are on the receiving end of this hatred but it must not be left to us to tackle alone."
More broadly, a report by Britain's Home Office found that there were 94,098 hate crime offenses recorded by the police in England and Wales during 2017-18, a 17 percent increase year on year.