MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY (AhlulBayt News Agency) - Yet another anti-Muslim hate crime was reported within the NYC public transit system during the Monday morning commute, when a uniformed Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) worker wearing a hijab, or headscarf, was attacked on her way to work in Midtown by a male subway rider, according to police.
The 45-year-old woman was aboard a 7 train around 6:20 a.m., headed to Grand Central Terminal, when "a person approached her, called her a terrorist and said she should not be working with the city," an NYPD spokesman said.
The attack turned violent when the woman exited the train at Grand Central, police said.
Her attacker — who cops believe to be a Hispanic man around 5 feet, 10 inches tall, wearing a black jacket — followed her into the station and pushed her down a flight of stairs, injuring her ankle and her knee, police said.
"I wish a speedy recovery for the victim, and want to let her know we are seeking justice for her and for all New Yorkers," New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement issued Monday.
This latest assault feeds into a 35 percent spike in city hate crimes this year, police said — and marks at least the third attack of its kind against a Muslim woman in NYC over the past week.
Below is a breakdown of last year's hate crimes versus this year's, courtesy of the NYPD.
In particular, the city saw "a huge spike" in hate crimes "right after the election" of Donald Trump on Nov. 8, part of a troubling national trend, NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said at a Monday press conference on recent crime rates in NYC.
"The national discourse has effects on hate crimes — hate speech, I should say," Boyce said.
"You can't have a candidate for president single out groups of Americans negatively and not have some ramification for that," NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said at the same presser.
"It's not a surprise there's been a huge uptick in hate crimes," the mayor said. "It's very troubling. Look: A few times recently the president-elect has spoken out against it. I think he needs to keep doing that. But it's obviously connected to the election. And it's dangerous. Thank God, in most cases, it's reduced to just speech or threats. But sometimes there are going to be people who follow through on these threats."
"We could lose lives because of this," de Blasio said.
Last Thursday night, 18-year-old Long Island resident Yasmin Seweid said three drunk white men in their 20s surrounded her in the 23rd Street Station; called her a "terrorist"; told her to go back to her country; ripped off her purse; and tried to pull her headscarf, or hijab, off her head before she could escape. Then, early Saturday evening in South Brooklyn, off-duty NYPD traffic cop Aml El Sokary — who also covers her head with a hijab — was allegedly called an "ISIS [expletive]" and told "I will cut your throat, go back to your country!" by a man who she said she confronted for shoving her 16-year-old son.
Brooklyn resident Christopher Nelson, 36, was arrested for the second attack and charged with felony "Menacing in the Second Degree as a Hate Crime," according to the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office.
No arrests had been made by Monday afternoon in the other two cases, according to the NYPD.
Since the Nov. 8 election, 43 hate crimes have been reported in NYC, up from 23 in the same time period last year, police officials announced Monday.
Another troubling figure: A toll-free hot line for bias and discrimination reports, set up by Gov. Cuomo on Nov. 15 to connect New Yorkers to the state Division of Human Rights, has received more than 1,200 calls in under two weeks, according to the governor's office.
Asked by a reporter at Monday's press conference whether he blamed Trump for the surge in local hate crimes, de Blasio said:
"Do I blame Donald Trump for using hate speech during his campaign? Absolutely. He did. It's a fact. he said horrible things about Muslims, horrible things about Mexican-Americans. I don't need to recount what happened for a year-and-a-half in this country. We can't airbrush that out of our history."
Going forward, the mayor said, "We now need to work with [Trump], and he has a chance to make it better by amending his comments and being a force of reconciliation. And I think he has to do more of that."
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