Crown Heights, NY – On the evening of April 14, a 20-year-old black man named Andrew Charles was attacked with pepper spray and then beaten by a pair of Hasidic assailants in his Crown Heights neighborhood. The attackers escaped in a GMC Envoy, and although Charles didn’t catch the plate number, a witness did. Police traced its registration to another neighborhood resident, Menachem Ezagui, who police say is a member of a local volunteer security-patrol group called the Crown Heights Shmira. He was picked up by police, but when the victim couldn’t identify him in a lineup, he was released. The investigation remains open, and the Shmira isn’t helping.
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The Shmira—the name means “to watch” or “to protect” in Hebrew—has a contentious history in the neighborhood. Founded in 1968, its original membership was conspicuously multiethnic. Today the Shmira’s 100 or so members are all Jewish. They monitor the neighborhood from a police-style patrol car. “We’ve had more than a dozen Jewish men in their twenties and thirties beaten and attacked viciously in the last year,” claims Yossi Stern, the group’s longtime leader, who says the police are more concerned about keeping crime stats down than responding. But some see the Shmira as a problem, not a solution. “They’re not supervised or properly trained,” says City Councilwoman Letitia James, who represents the area. Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes has called the organization “renegade.” The anonymous blog Who Is Shmira?, which was launched after the attack, has mocked the organization’s leaders and says the group victimizes Crown Heights. “Community patrols usually cooperate with their local precinct,” says NYPD assistant chief Michael Collins. “But unfortunately this group has chosen not to.”
Stern says his members are simply protecting their community. “We’re talking cracked skulls, broken arms, missing teeth,” he says. “Not one time was there a strong, faithful effort [to find the perpetrators] like the police are doing now with this black kid.” Stern gives an example from earlier this year. “A Jewish boy walking in the neighborhood got his head ripped wide open,” he says. “The black guy was pointed out, and I walked up to him and said, ‘My name is Yossi Stern, and I’m with the Crown Heights Shmira.’ He was bigger than me, and intimidating. He said, ‘Get out of my face.’ I said, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ The cops came and put him in handcuffs.” The Police Department, however, lost the report, Stern claims—just one of dozens of complaints that he charges have been misplaced as part of a citywide effort to bury crime stats. (The NYPD wouldn’t address this charge.)
“We don’t carry guns,” Stern says. “No bats, no sticks, no pepper spray. We’re husbands, we’re brothers. We’re a passive patrol, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” Authorities and locals still suspect Shmira members were involved with the Charles beating, and Hynes convened a grand jury late last month. “The police and Hynes don’t have all the facts,” says Stern. “If they have all the facts, why aren’t they bringing them forward?”
loz zan azoy! In a few more days the whole thing will blow over. the cops will come up with some other fish to fry.
shmuel: cant say i agree with you. You dont know the way it works in the big city, do you…?
Dumb question: Why don’t the CH Shmira people put video cameras on all the corners in CH. Then there would be a record of what happens?
“Dumb question: Why don’t the CH Shmira people put video cameras on all the corners in CH. Then there would be a record of what happens?”
Not such a dump question, it’s actually a good question.
The Renegade Shmira does not want cameras because then they will be the ones getting caught doing illegal acts against innocent citizens. In example: for one, vandalizing Shomrim Property (Scooters etc…), threatening and doing damage to property of “fellow Jews” that don’t do what they want. Lets not forget that it’s not the first time that they have beaten people (whether it is a Jew or Goy) for no reason, just this time they were caught. Can you imagine there were cameras all over, how would you expect these (Shmira) thugs to get away with there crimes???
there r plenty of cameras on buildings in the area
forget about funding….you can not put camera’s on government property. In addition, you will have the ACLU breathing down your neck with the ” invasion of privacy” lawsuit.
Shimra worked very hard, the past coule of years to encourage home owners to install cameras, and it had positive results.
The criminals, and the police could’t argue with the evidence.
Thank You Shmira
Ahh yes, Crown Heightsers fighting each other again. If there wasn’t so much Sinas Chinam then there’d be no problems. and don’t tell me that one or another is right. Fact is, both Shomrim and Shmira are wrong for being knuckleheads. The Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because people hated each other, and it ain’t being rebuilt by this kind of behavior. As Lubavitchers, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
TRS: I live in Crown Heights, and agree with you. I believe 99% of the people here also agree with you….
CH Shomrim is getting support from other shomrims to fight anyone who is a mishachist, which got them invovled in politics, and they don’t know how to crawl out of it.
CH Shmira never mixed in to any politics, a yid is a yid, yes yechi , or no yechi. They are only intrested for the safety of the neiborhood.
Kudos, to the non machlokeis Patrol.
To TRT 12:57PM
Not everybody on this Blog is Lubavitch.
We are all yidden alike, unless the Goyim blog in as well, and for the comment “as lubavithers you should be ashamed of yourselfs” anyone that encourages machlokes is not a real chosid.
Why is there no Chaverim in Crown Heights?
The answer all leads to the same. The Heshkops own a body shop and benefit from people not being helped by organizations. The same goes for Shomrim, it’s a organization for the benefit of these lonely people that have no ones support other then causing fear to the community opposing them.
Shmira has individuals aged 20-60 many married and responsible parents and business owners caring about their fellow neighbors. What can i say about Shomrim? 15yr old kids, school dropouts etc.
All BS. Crown Heights is small and warm and we don’t need Chaveirim – we have good neighbors who’ll go out and bust a lock or start a car for anyone in the area. Shomrim and Shmira BOTH have problem cases – let’s face it – calmer souls don’t go in for anti-crime patrol work (I know – I’m physically suited for it but temperamentally incapable of it). But most of the people I know on both forces are decent and do what they do with mesirus nefesh. Pity they can’t merge and get rid of all the bad apples.
TRS, tell me…why should Lubavitchers have the monopoly on behaving badly? Last I looked you had scandal after scandal in Ger, Bobov, Satmar, Lakewood (mustn’t forget them!)& as for the Beis Hamikdash, the “Snags” v. Lubavitchers is far worse than anything going on within Lubavitch today. Don’t be so dumb.
Now, as for we Lubavitchers being ashamed of ourselves…to some degree I agree with you, IF WE DID WRONG. But it applies to any frum person. If Jews behave badly yes, they should be ashamed, but as INDIVIDUALS, not as a group as a whole.
Lastly, SHMIRA is a decent group of guys who really do go out of their way to help the community. SHOMRIM do too, BUT they ARE hotheads, dropouts etc etc, led by a few people who I wouldn’t trust not to beat up the opposition, no matter who the opposition might be.
One thing is clear…this black guy did something, don’t know what, but something. He is not the innocent victim of those mean, nasty Lubavitchers. It was Erev Pesach, we had enough things to deal with in the community. No one is stupid enough to attack a Black without provocation. Credit us with more smarts than that!!!