And this is what it is coming to:
Driver Arrested in Hate Crime at Mall
This story was reported by Samuel Bruchey, Alfonso A. Castillo, Theresa Vargas, Steve Wick, Emi Endo, Sid Cassese, Erik Holm and Pat Burson and written by Burson.
September 13, 2001
A Huntington Station man who screamed that he was "doing this for my country" was arrested last night after trying to run down a Pakistani woman with his car, Suffolk police said.
The incident, one of several on Long Island that authorities and victims attributed to a backlash of hatred generated by Tuesday's terrorist attacks, occurred at Walt Whitman Mall in South Huntington.
Police said Adam Lang, 76, of Huntington Station, was outside the mall revving his engine for several minutes. Then, as the woman stood on a sidewalk awaiting a ride home, he put the car in drive and headed directly at her.
"If she hadn't jumped out of the way," said Det. Sgt. Robert Reecks, commander of Suffolk's Bias Crimes Bureau, "he would have run right over her."
Lang jumped out of the car, Reecks said, and screamed that he was "doing this for his country" and was "going to kill her."
Lang, of 25 Sixth Ave., was charged with first-degree reckless endangerment, a hate crime. He was being held pending arraignment today.
The woman, who was not identified, ran inside the mall to safety. Reecks said Lang also was charged with driving while intoxicated.
The alleged attack came as other Long Island residents voiced fears of irrational retribution.
Saira Ahmed, an American of Pakistani descent, said she has been afraid to leave her Syosset home since Tuesday's attack.
"I wear the traditional scarf, and I'm absolutely afraid to leave the house because I don't know how people will show their emotions toward me," said Ahmed, 20. "We're just as outraged as other New Yorkers and Americans are."
Nassau and Suffolk police reported several incidents of violence directed toward Middle Easterners, or those perceived to be Muslim. The Mahmanawaz Grocery on Smithtown Boulevard in Nesconset was the target of an apparent arson early yesterday morning, police said. "If the same community that welcomed me can turn around and look at me like that, then I have to put all my dreams and the way I used to think back in perspective," said owner Kamal Kahn, who emigrated from Pakistan 13 years ago. "I'm still a foreigner."
Brian Harris, 29, of Selden, was arrested in Suffolk yesterday for menacing as a hate crime after he waved a pellet gun and shouted ethnic slurs at an attendant at a Citgo gas station in Ronkonkoma.
Anti-Arab sentiments swelled so quickly that in many instances it didn't matter who the victim was. Amrik Singh, a Sikh who wears a turban, said four men chased him Tuesday as he fled lower Manhattan to return home to Hicksville.
Nassau and Suffolk police said they were monitoring mosques in both counties. "We're hoping not to have any further incidents," said Suffolk Police Chief Philip Robilotto, "but we want to be ready in case we do."
Copyright © 2001, Newsday, Inc. |
