Gov: Fighting ‘virus of hate’
Speaks after arrest in anti-Semitic case
Hate has no place in New York, Gov. Cuomo said Friday after announcing the arrest of an upstate man accused of making a reference to a gas chamber and calling his coworker a “f—-ing Jew.”
Cuomo railed against a recent rash of anti-Semitic acts as he joined State Police in Kingston to announce the arrest of a 21-year-old man charged with locking the woman in a walk-in cooler at an upstate health food store, shutting off the lights and telling her, “You’re in the gas chamber now.”
“We see a virus of hate that is spreading across this country, that is spreading across this globe,” Cuomo said. “And it’s a virus, and it’s a cancer.”
State Police charged William Sullivan, of Saugerties, with aggravated harassment after the incident at the Mother Earth’s Storehouse in the Kings Mall in the town of Ulster.
The victim is reported to be unharmed and is “handling it as well as expected,” police said.
Cuomo said the incident is just the latest in a growing string of hateful acts targeting Jews.
Anti-Semitic attacks jumped 60% nationwide from 2016 to 2017 and increased a startling 90% in the Empire State over the same time, the governor noted.
“This is something that everyone must be concerned about. And it’s here in New York, we see it nationwide. But this is New York. And in New York, it is offensive, it is shocking, and frankly, it’s hard for me to even believe that this is the reality,” Cuomo said.
The governor noted a spate of violent attacks against Orthodox Jewish men earlier this year in Brooklyn and an uptick in vandalism including Swastikas and hateful messages that have been drawn across the city and elsewhere in the state.
He added at a later press conference that New York must stand up to such despicable acts in an era that has seen President Trump sow division and violence such as the recent anti-Muslim attack in New Zealand continues to rise.
“This is the state that needs to stop the cancer from spreading by the power of our example not just the power of our rhetoric,” he said. “These acts of anti-Semitism are abhorrent to us.”