Arab-American activists chased and threatened with beheading in Brooklyn

A drunken man chased two female Arab-
American community organisers in Brooklyn,
New York , threatening to behead them and
throwing a large metal garbage can at them.
Despite two separate 911 calls, the New York
police department took more than 45 minutes
to respond. The department sent top hate
crime investigators after one of the women, a
prominent activist, told her story at an NYPD
community relations meeting that happened
soon after the incident on Wednesday.
Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab
American Association of New York, said she
initially found the man leaning against the wall
near her social services agency.
“I was leaving to a meeting and I went outside
and found a man leaning up against our
storefront,” said Sarsour. “So, I went back
inside and I said to my deputy director, ‘Hey,
can you call 911 and just tell them there’s a
man in front of our storefront and can they
remove him?’”
“I’m literally giving these instructions, next
thing you know — boom! He gets up out of
nowhere, like a surge of energy, and he starts
chasing me and my colleague up the street,”
said Sarsour. “He’s like, ‘You’re cutting
people’s heads off! I’m going to cut your head
off and see how your people feel about it!’”
While running, Sarsour said, she and her
colleague again called 911, saying the man they
had requested be removed was violent and
chasing them down busy 5th Avenue in Bay
Ridge, Brooklyn. While chasing them, the man
picked up a department of sanitation metal
garbage can and threw it at the women.
Sarsour said she believed the man may have
had a tool in his back pocket.
She and her colleague fled into a nearby
business and locked the door, where they
stayed until the man wandered off, on to a
residential street. “Just literally walked away,
went up a residential street because of course
law enforcement didn’t show up,” said Sarsour.
The AAANY is little more than half a mile from
the police precinct. Again on her way to a
public meeting with top NYPD leaders, Sarsour
said she saw a police car in front of a bagel
store, and confronted two police inside, asking
why they had not responded. After she left it
took police another 15 minutes to respond to
the AAANY.
“Anyway, I walked into the meeting late,” said
Sarsour, “and I just told my story. And NYPD
top brass was horrified — they were like
‘What?’”
A man, 45-year-old Brian Boshell, has since
been arrested in connection with the incident.
He was charged with criminal possession of a
weapon — for throwing the trash can —
aggravated harassment as a hate crime,
aggravated harassment, menacing and three
counts of menacing as a hate crime. The NYPD
said there was no information on the specific
threats the man used or how long it took the
NYPD to respond.
An internal investigation into the NYPD
response was launched after Sarsour told her
story.
“The point, what I really want to get across in
this story, is I just happened to be a well-
known activist in New York City,” Sarsour said.
“But what about when it’s ordinary people
who don’t know how the system works? Who
call 911 in cases of emergency? And also people
for whom English is not their first language?”
The dispatcher, Sarsour said, was not told that
the man was screaming Islamophobic epithets,
but that a violent man was chasing two women
down a street.