Baltimore, MD – Baltimore’s new state’s attorney says his decision to drop a felony assault charge against a member of an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood watch group accused of attacking a black teenager was based on the evidence.
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The teenager’s attorney said after the decision that State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein was being soft on Jewish hate crime because he is Jewish. Bernstein said his decision was based only on the evidence in the case.
Attorney J. Wyndal Gordon claims his client was targeted because he is black.
The felony charge was dropped Thursday against 23-old Eliyahu Werdesheim, a former Israeli special-forces soldier, who still faces misdemeanor charges. Werdesheim’s brother, 20-year-old Avi Werdesheim, also faces misdemeanor charges in the case.
If it was the other way around, and charges were dropped against a Black gang member accused of attacking a religious Jew, the Black community would have stated that the charges should not have been brought in the first place, and the only reason that the charges were brought, was because the suspect was Black.
Best thing to do is get the DOJ involved and have an independent investigation from the Federal Government. The innocent will remain innocent if the evidence is there as the DA claims. Having Jewish attorney general dismissing charges after a lot of public noise does look suspicious to outside groups. The same was true when Governor Patterson pardoned a black man accused of shooting a white teenager.
elightened-yid: The question / allegation is outrageous, racist and anti-Semitic unless it is based on evidence of bias. No one would have asked if the previous state’s attorney (who happens to be black) dropped charges against a black defendant because he was black. And suggesting a DOJ investigation is no less outrageous, racist and anti-Semitic, without any evidence of wrongdoing.