NYC police hunt for protestors who attacked man holding Israeli flag on Oct. 7 anniversary
NEW YORK — Police have released images of pro-Palestinian activists who attacked a man with an Israeli flag in Manhattan on the anniversary of Hamas’s brutal surprise attack on Israel, officials said Thursday.
The four suspects, one sporting a cast on his arm, played a role in jumping Todd Richman as he showed his pride in Israel at Union Square Park on Monday as mass protests marking the first anniversary of the deadly terrorist attack were held across the city.
Richman, 54, said he was walking with the flag near Union Square just before 4 p.m. when he was accosted by several demonstrators who mocked him before they got physical.
“I just was just walking by,” Richman told the Daily News on Monday. When he was assaulted, Richman was wearing a Star of David necklace and a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “BRING THEM HOME NOW,” a reference to the remaining hostages who were kidnapped during Hamas’ attack on Israel.
“They started telling me, ‘Long live Oct. 7. Happy Oct. 7. When’s the next Nova Festival?’ And then they just started banging drums in my face and I was literally just walking down the street doing absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. Unbelievable.”
Seconds later, he said, someone snatched the flag out of his hand.
During the ensuing scuffle, a man wearing a white T-shirt and black jeans struck him with a flagpole, cops said. A second demonstrator, a woman in a black bucket hat, black sweater and red sweatpants, struck him in the face with a tambourine.
Richman suffered a cut to his face during the attack and was treated at the scene by EMS.
“They ripped (the flag) away from me,” he said, “and then the guy hit me in the face and threw a tambourine and they hit me in the face with a flag.”
No arrests have been made in the Union Square attack. Meanwhile, also in Monday’s protests, near the New York Stock Exchange, seven pro-Palestinian activists were arrested for fighting with police trying to pen them into a barricaded area a half block away.
One of the arrested protesters, 20-year-old Abdultawab Elrais of Rochelle Park, N.J., is accused of kicking an NYPD captain in the chest, police said.