Teen 'Incel' Threatened To Bomb Midtown Restaurant, Feds Say

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — A teenage misogynist who filmed himself harassing women and sowing chaos on city streets has been arrested after making a false bomb threat at a Manhattan restaurant, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

Malik Sanchez, 19, who called himself "Smooth Sanchez" on YouTube and Instagram, was arrested Wednesday and charged with a federal crime for making the hoax threat in February.

Sanchez identifies as an "involuntary celibate," the online group often known simply as "incels," comprised mostly of men who "believe that society unjustly denies them sexual or romantic attention to which they are entitled," prosecutors wrote.

In that Feb. 13 incident, which Sanchez captured in a video, he approached two women dining outdoors in the Flatiron neighborhood, telling viewers, "Let's enhance their meal."

After stepping inside the dining setup, Sanchez appears to adopt a fake accent and says, "Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. Bomb detonation in two—in two minutes," the video shows.

"I take you with me and I kill all you. I kill all you right now," he continues. "I do it, bomb now, bomb now."

The women then leave their table and hurry inside the restaurant, along with four other customers. Sanchez, delighted, boasts to himself that "all of them scattered."

Authorities did not name the restaurant, but the video shows it to be Beecher's Handmade Cheese on Broadway and East 20th Street.

"I have incel rage"

Wednesday's arrest was not Sanchez's first. He was cuffed in October after climbing the Queensboro Bridge, days after he allegedly pepper-sprayed a woman on the street in Chelsea — "stunts" that he also filmed, according to police.

#HappeningNow:
An individual recklessly climbed the 59th Street Bridge & was subsequently taken into custody by #ESU.

He was arrested & will he charged with multiple crimes. pic.twitter.com/SAxsaJo7OK
— NYPD Special Ops (@NYPDSpecialops) October 22, 2020

The incel ideology pervades Sanchez's videos, like one February video filmed in Lower Manhattan in which he yells at two women, "It’s 'cause of you that I’m a virgin — I have Incel rage."

He goes on to praise Elliot Rodger, who targeted women in a 2014 California spree killing that left six people dead, according to authorities. (Rodger has since been held up as a hero by the movement.)

In a similar March incident, Sanchez walked up to women at an outdoor dining area in Manhattan, filmed himself pointing an imaginary gun at them, and references Rodger. When bystanders tried to get him to stop, Sanchez pepper-sprayed them, for which he was arrested, authorities said.

Someone called 911 after February's bomb threat, leading police to show up at the restaurant, but Sanchez had already left, authorities said in a complaint released Wednesday.

Sanchez's arrest was carried out by the FBI and the NYPD, and is being handled by the Terrorism and International Narcotics unit in the Manhattan federal prosecutor's office.

He was due to appear in court Wednesday afternoon. If convicted of the charge of conveying false and misleading information and hoaxes, Sanchez faces up to five years in prison.