Man charged with assault on 2 Jewish students on University of Pittsburgh campus
Written by on August 31, 2024
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PITTSBURGH (AP) — A man was charged with felony aggravated assault after an alleged glass bottle attack on two Jewish students on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, a city newspaper reported Saturday.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the 52-year-old suspect was also charged with simple assault, reckless endangering, resisting arrest and harassment.
The Post-Gazette, citing a criminal complaint, said the man was seen on surveillance video sitting at a table across the street from the students as they walked near Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning on Friday evening. Police say he ran across the street and hit them from behind with the bottle.
The students, who were wearing traditional Jewish yarmulke head coverings, were treated at the scene, the university said. One had cuts on his face, and the other had cuts on his neck, the Post-Gazette said, citing the criminal complaint.
The suspect, who has no known affiliation with the school, was wearing a kaffiyeh, a traditional checkered scarf worn in the Middle East and increasingly displayed as a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
University leaders were in contact with the Hillel University Center as well as the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.
Agents from the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office were also sent to the scene to investigate the possibility of a hate crime, the newspaper said.
The university called it an “appalling incident” but said there was no ongoing threat to the public. Counseling was being made available.
“To be clear: Neither acts of violence nor antisemitism will be tolerated,” the university said in a statement.
Court documents did not list an attorney for the suspect, and a listed number for him couldn’t be found Saturday.
The incident came at the end of the first full week of fall semester classes and a few months after spring protests on the campus over the war in Gaza, one of which took place in front of the Cathedral of Learning.
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