Megan Horne, 34, allegedly harmed three Muslim people, including a 12-year-old, in Bay Ridge in January.<\/p>\n
A Staten Island woman on Wednesday was\u00a0indicted and\u00a0charged with assault as a hate crime and related offenses in connection with a series of unprovoked attacks against three Muslim people in Bay Ridge.<\/p>\n
The victims were targeted while wearing religious attire when the incidents occurred, according to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.<\/p>\n
Megan Horne, 34, of Staten Island, was charged with third-degree assault as a hate crime, third-degree assault, third-degree attempted assault as a hate crime, third-degree attempted assault, third-degree menacing as a hate crime, third-degree menacing, second-degree aggravated harassment and endangering the welfare of a child.<\/p>\n
On January 30, 2026, at approximately 2:25pm, near Fifth Avenue and 89th Street in Bay Ridge, the defendant allegedly approached a 33-year-old woman wearing a hijab and punched and kicked her while making anti-Muslim statements.<\/p>\n
Minutes later, near 92nd Street and Gelston Avenue, the defendant allegedly approached a 12-year-old girl who was also wearing a hijab and punched her in the face.<\/p>\n
Shortly thereafter, near Fort Hamilton Parkway and 92nd Street, the defendant allegedly approached a 39-year-old woman wearing a hijab and pushed her as she was boarding a bus, again making a statement directed at the victim\u2019s perceived religion.<\/p>\n
Horne fled each scene, Gonzalez said. The victims suffered pain, redness and fear for their safety, but declined medical attention at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis defendant is accused of targeting three people, including a child, in a string of unprovoked assaults allegedly fueled by anti-Muslim bias,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “No one should be attacked, threatened, or made to fear for their safety because of their faith.”<\/p>\n
The defendant remains on supervised release and was ordered to return to court on May 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Megan Horne, 34, allegedly harmed three Muslim people, including a 12-year-old, in Bay Ridge in January. A Staten…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[71478,9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-175992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-hate-crimemegan-horne","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}