East Havener Arrested, Accused Of Downtown Hate Crime

By Thomas Breen, New Haven Independent

NEW HAVEN, CT — (Updated) City police have arrested a 36-year-old East Haven man on a hate-crime charge after he allegedly yelled “baby killers” and “go back where you belong” to a group of three Jewish men downtown before slapping a yarmulke off of one of their heads.

New Haven Police Chief David Zannelli told the Independent that police arrested that suspect at his East Haven home on Monday at 12:37 p.m.

Zannelli said the man, who previously lived in Maine, has been charged with one felony count of intimidation based on bigotry and bias in the second degree and one count of disorderly conduct. He was released on a $10,000 bond.

Zannelli praised city police Det. Elizabeth White for taking the lead on the investigation that led to Monday’s arrest.

“This type of behavior will never be tolerated in this city,” Zannelli said.

The arrest took place roughly a week after the incident in question, which occurred on Tuesday, June 2, soon before 4 p.m. on the 200 block of Crown Street.

According to a police press release posted on social media last week, three men who were “visibly identifiable members of the Jewish community” were approached at that time by a man they did not know. “The man appeared agitated and began yelling statements such as ‘get out of my city,’ ‘baby killers,’ ‘go back where you belong’ and asking if they liked ‘genocide,'” according to the press release.

The man then allegedly “attempted to shove a fourth person who was trying to intervene, threw a rolled-up newspaper at them, then pointed at the yarmulke one of the victims was wearing and slapped it off his head, causing it to fall on the ground.”

Two days after the incident, police posted on X a press release and a surveillance-camera picture of the suspect, and asked for the public to help identify him.

Zannelli said on Monday that police received “a bunch of information” from the public. Police were then able to “fast-track” a warrant, with the assistance of state’s attorney David Strollo, in order to make sure the “person [was] held accountable in a timely manner.”

The suspect did not provide a statement to police at the time of the arrest. The Independent was not able to reach the suspect for a comment by publication time of this article.

Zannelli credited the public’s help, “the use of cameras, city and private,” and the “dedication of detectives” in helping make this arrest possible.

“A Dark Moment In An Otherwise Bright City”

Rabbi Meir Posner, the director of Chabad at Yale, was one of the three men assailed downtown last week by the man who has now been arrested.

In a phone interview with the Independent on Monday, Posner said that he and a recent Yale grad had been walking and talking on Crown Street when they ran into a third person who is also part of Yale’s Chabad community.

“We stopped to chat with him,” Posner said, when they were confronted by a “loud and abrasive” stranger.

Posner said that the assailant was accompanied by two other “instigators” who were “amused by the whole thing” and were “kind of provoking the actual perpetrator.”

Posner said that it was clear from the suspect’s language and aggression that he and his friends were being targeted because of “the way we present.”

“I am proud that I wear a yarmulke” and tzitzit, Posner said. He said that one of his companions was also wearing a yarmulke and tzitzit at the time of this encounter. “It was very clearly directed at us,” he said about the suspect’s aggression.

Posner praised the police for being so immediately supportive and for taking this incident seriously. “I think New Haven is a great city. I think that Yale is a great place with great people, as well,” he said. This encounter represents “a dark moment in an otherwise bright city.”

“It is disturbing that there are people that feel the need to express themselves in that way and that harbor such feelings,” Posner continued. “There was nothing rational or reasonable about this person’s behavior,” as well as that of the other two “instigators.”

And so, he concluded, “it makes me feel like the best response is to respond with irrational kindness and goodness, in the same way that hate can be irrational,” so too can its opposite.

This article was updated at 5:55 p.m. with an interview with one of the victims, Rabbi Meir Posner.

The New Haven Independent is a not-for-profit public-interest daily news site founded in 2005.