NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A suspect in two stabbings on New York City streets was arrested Friday on attempted murder and other charges, including hate crime charges relating to one of the victims, a Jewish man, police said.<\/p>\n
Raul Morales, 51, allegedly yelled the Arabic phrase \u201cAllahu akbar\u201d while attacking two men separately Thursday on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, according to police accounts of what witnesses told them.<\/p>\n
Police had no immediate comment Friday on how they decided that hate crime laws pertained to the Jewish victim but not the other, who is of Asian descent. Morales was awaiting arraignment, and prosecutors ultimately will decide what charges he faces in court.<\/p>\n
As Morales was led out of a police station Friday evening, he shouted about seeking justice for someone. When reporters asked about the stabbings, he responded that he was \u201cgonna talk about it\u201d as he was ushered into a police car.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Morales has an attorney who could comment on the allegations.<\/p>\n
The stabbings happened about two blocks apart Thursday afternoon, police said. Both victims were taken to a hospital and were expected to survive. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Thursday that there wasn\u2019t any known link between Morales and the victims.<\/p>\n
The Asian American Foundation, a New York-based advocacy group, said the attacks \u201cunderscore the persistent safety challenges\u201d and mistreatment \u2014 from harassment to physical assault \u2014 facing Asian Americans in the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe demand continued, meaningful investment in community safety and hate prevention that protects everyone,\u201d the group said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Hate crimes in New York City have been on the rise in recent years, while overall violent crime rates have dropped, according to police data. Tisch said in April that more than half of all confirmed hate crimes in the city so far this year targeted Jewish people.<\/p>\n
Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was disgusted by Thursday’s attacks and emphasized that New York stands with its Jewish and Asian communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cAsian New Yorkers, like Jewish New Yorkers, have endured waves of hate-fueled violence in recent years,\u201d she said in a post on X. \u201cHate rarely stops with one group. New York will continue confronting it wherever it appears.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A suspect in two stabbings on New York City streets was arrested Friday on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-305142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305142","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=305142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}