Bat vic: Attacker went off when he saw my yarmulke
A man who was bashed in the head with a metal bat by a stranger who called him a “dirty Jew” tells the Daily News that the hate-filled attack began when his assailant spotted him wearing a yarmulke.
The 25-year-old victim, a driving instructor, was bringing a student driver to a road test on Grandview Ave. near Netherland Ave. in Mariners Harbor, Staten Island, on Feb. 12 when the attacker — identified by cops as Obadiah Lashley — spotted him around 2:30 p.m., he said.
The instructor, who didn’t want his name published, was standing on the sidewalk waiting for the test to end when Lashley, 29, approached him and pointed at his yarmulke.
“He shouted, ‘How do you know you are Jewish?’ ” the victim said. “I was stunned and taken aback by that. I didn’t know what to say to that.”
Lashley then lunged at the man with his arms outstretched.
“I whacked his hands out of my airspace,” the victim said. “I started yelling and screaming to get him to back off.”
He looked back up and saw Lashley was holding a metal pipe that the victim likened to a small baseball bat.
“Before I knew it, he knocked me in the ribs with it and I fell over,” he said. “When I started screaming, he called me a ‘dirty Jew.’ ”
Lashley bashed the man in the head up to 10 times, the victim believing he was aiming for his yarmulke.
“There were people there [and] no one knew how to even respond,” the driving instructor said. “At that point, the guy fled the scene.”
As the man bled profusely in the street, stunned bystanders called 911.
“If no one was there, I probably would have died,” he said.
Medics took the man to Staten Island University Hospital, where he received 10 staples to his head.
“I am still bruised up,” he said a week after the attack. “Under my [yarmulke] is where he knocked me really hard. It’s a miracle the CT scan turned up clean.”
The victim is still experiencing headaches as a result of the blows.
Police caught up to Lashley two days after the attack and charged him with assault as a hate crime, criminal possession of a weapon, aggravated harassment, menacing and assault.
He lives about half a mile from where cops say he attacked the man. The incident came amid an alarming spike in antisemitism as Israel’s war on Gaza continues.
Despite Lashley’s hateful remarks, the victim believes the unhinged man could have targeted anyone.
“He could have done it to anyone,” he said. “He could have found something else to say to someone else. I don’t think I’ve noticed any antisemitism in my personal life, but it’s definitely out there.”
Following an arraignment in Staten Island Criminal Court, Lashley was held on a $50,000 cash bail or $100,000 bond, which he did not post. He’s being held at a Rikers Island jail pending his next court appearance.