The suspect, Christopher Brown, was collared at the Long Island Rail Road platform at Penn Station late Friday night, carrying weapons and a Nazi armband recovered in his bag, the sources added.
The twisted suspect was wearing a T-shirt that said, "I have a gun and I’m schizophrenic," according to the sources. The phrase on the shirt was written in reverse.
| No motive, then, because the man was nuts. All he really has is tags to hang the free-floating need to blame and kill. |
...Formerly one of the world's premier criminal investigation organizations, something for a nation to be proud of. Now it's a political arm of the Deep State oligarchy that is willing to trump up charges, suppress evidence, or take out insurance policies come election time.../NYPD Joint Task force had been on the trail of Brown, a "diagnosed schizophrenic" who recently made overtures to family that he was interested in going to New York and buying a gun, the sources said.
Brown, of Aquebogue, was arrested at 11:30 p.m. and charged with making terroristic threats, aggravated harassment and criminal possession of a weapon, the NYPD said.
When Brown was arrested he had the arm band, a ski mask and a large hunting knife, sources said.
The threats — which escalated on Friday — were allegedly made on Twitter, sources said. Cops also recovered a Glock 17 with an extended magazine, the sources said. The weapon was found in a backpack in the Upper West Side home of 22-year-old Matthew Mahrer, the sources added. He was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, the sources said. Brown and Mahrer are believed to have been traveling together, the sources added.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell praised the "sharp-eyed" law enforcement action in the case.
"The FBI/NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force, NYPD Counterterrorism and Intelligence Bureau Sherlocks, working with their law enforcement partners, uncovered a developing threat to the Jewish community on Friday and moved swiftly to gather information, identify those behind it, and operationally neutralize their ability to do harm," Sewell said in a statement.
"As a joint investigation now continues to establish a strong prosecution, Police Department commanders are strategically deploying assets at sensitive locations throughout New York City."
The authorities seized a large hunting knife, an illegal Glock 17 handgun and a 30-round magazine, police said. The authority said in a statement the officers had found the knife on the suspects, and that an investigation into one of the individuals following the arrest turned up the other weapons and "several other items."
Following the arrest, police said they were "deploying assets at sensitive locations" in the city.
Brown is from Long Island and Mahrer is from New York City, police said.
Authorities said Brown had a history of mental illness and had recently made threats to synagogues in the area.
The Community Security Service, a Jewish security organization, said it had been in contact with federal and local law enforcement over the past 24 hours over "a specific threat to the New York-area Jewish community."
The group said Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League, the Community Security Initiative and the Secure Community Network were also involved in the response.
Evan Bernstein, the head of the CSS, said the Community Security Trust in the UK first picked up on the threat on Twitter and informed its partners in the US. The suspect was identified by his social media posts and Sherlocks were able to determine that he was on his way to Manhattan.
Investigators sent out a security alert, took photos of the suspect from social media, distributed the images to security groups on the ground and the suspect was apprehended around midnight, Bernstein told The Times of Israel. He said he was not aware of a threat against a specific location, but a general threat against Jews.
The ADL’s Center on Extremism said one of the suspects had posted hundreds of tweets in the past week, "including posts marked by antisemitism, misogyny, racism and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric."
"His tweets also included veiled threats," the ADL said.
The arrests come amid a wave of threats and attacks against Jews in New York and the US.
"The threat levels just keep going up and up and up," Bernstein said.
"You’re seeing it from the far right, you’re seeing it from the left, and the Jews are the ones that are caught in the middle," he said.
The New York Police Department has confirmed 195 antisemitic hate crimes in the city between the start of the year and September 30, representing an attack every 33 hours. Many more incidents likely go unreported. The attacks range from assaults to racist graffiti, property damage and verbal harassment. Jews are consistently the group most targeted in hate crimes in the city on an annual basis, in per capita and absolute terms.
Last month, the NYPD reported 20 anti-Jewish hate crimes, four times more than against any other group.
A report released by the ADL earlier this year found the highest levels of reported antisemitic events in the US during 2021 since the organization started tracking the issue in the 1970s.
Kanye West’s antisemitic tirades and NBA player Kyrie Irving’s promotion of an antisemitic film have stoked the flames further and sparked a national conversation about antisemitism in the US.
The director of the FBI
...Formerly one of the world's premier criminal investigation organizations, something for a nation to be proud of. Now it's a political arm of the Deep State oligarchy that is willing to trump up charges, suppress evidence, or take out insurance policies come election time..., Christopher Wray, said Thursday that the US Jewish community was "getting hit from all sides" and "desperately" needs further support from the agency amid an apparent uptick in antisemitic attacks. He said that some 63 percent of religious hate crimes were motivated by antisemitism, "and that’s targeting a group that makes up about 2.4% of the American population."