A 14-year-old Orthodox Jewish boy was jumped from behind while walking home in Lakewood this weekend, according to police, who labeled the attack a bias crime.
The teenager was punched and kicked by about five or six “African-American men or youth,” who uttered several words, including “Jew,” just before the attack at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in the Ocean County township, police Sgt. Edward Rupp said.
The attack happened on Spruce Street off Route 9, and the victim was able to make it home afterward, Rupp said. The child was taken to a local hospital, where he was treated for cuts and bruises and released, police said.
“We’re investigating it as a bias- related incident,” Rupp said.
The attack was the third violent incident to rock Lakewood re cently, following a riot that forced the high school into a lockdown a week ago, and a baseball bat at tack on a rabbi last month. Community leaders said they worried Saturday’s attack signaled increasing unrest in a diverse town that has had occasional friction.
Police on Oct. 25 arrested Lee Tucker, a 37-year-old township man, and charged him with at tempted murder and possession of a deadly weapon.
Authorities have declined to label the rabbi’s beating as bias-related. Tucker is black.
More than half of the township’s 75,000 residents are Orthodox Jews, whose numbers have soared since the 1990s. With 71 percent of the population white, 15 percent Hispanic, and 11 percent black, community leaders have likened the township’s makeup to that of a diverse city.
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