A hammer-wielding creep with more than 50 prior arrests chased a woman into a Jewish school in Queens \u2014 before a security guard stopped him in a scuffle that left an 8-year-old boy injured, law enforcement sources said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The maniac, 42, made eye contact with a 19-year-old woman \u2014 who is not Jewish \u2014 and started following her at Hoffman Drive and Woodhaven Boulevard in Elmhurst around 10:50 a.m., the sources said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The woman ducked into the nearby Jewish Institute of Queens on Woodhaven Boulevard near Wetherole Street for shelter, but the\u00a0alleged stalker tried to follow her inside, according to the sources.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The maniac allegedly barged into the Jewish Institute of Queens in Elmhurst \u2014 on the heels of a woman who was trying to run away from him, sources said. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post<\/p>\n
As a school security guard tried to hold back the man,\u00a0the young boy was caught in the middle and accidentally bumped\u00a0by the guard, hitting his head on the fence, the sources said.<\/p>\n
The child was taken to Long Island Jewish Hospital with a cut on his head that is considered non-life-threatening, the sources said.<\/p>\n
The suspect was apprehended at the scene \u2014 with the hammer recovered \u2014 and charges are pending.<\/p>\n
Investigators are probing whether the attack was a hate crime, but it did not immediately appear that the suspect made any statements, according to the sources.<\/p>\n
The \u201cemotionally disturbed\u201d suspect was stopped by security before an 8-year-old boy was hurt in the scuffle, sources said. NY Post<\/p>\n
But representatives from Queens Shmira, a non-profit public safety patrol which also responded, said they \u201ccan confirm that this incident was not a hate crime\u201d and that the suspect \u201cwas an emotionally disturbed individual.\u201d<\/p>\n
The arrested man has 51 previous arrests in the Big Apple \u2014 including one from Friday when he allegedly stole $1,300 worth of things from Bergdorf Goodman, sources said.<\/p>\n
He was freed without bail, according to public records.<\/p>\n
A hammer was recovered from the deranged intruder, sources said. NY Post<\/p>\n
He was also busted on July 8 for a petit larceny, and nabbed on May 7 for an April 30 petit larceny and criminal possession of stolen property case \u2014 both in Queens, the sources said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The suspect also has an extensive history of mental health-related incidents in the city and has a gang affiliation, according to the sources.<\/p>\n
A representative from the school declined to comment when reached by The Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am praying for the injured child, the college-aged woman who sought refuge, and everyone impacted by this frightening incident,\u201d Council Member Phil Wong, who represents the area, said in a statement. \u201cI am also grateful to the institute\u2019s security personnel and the officers of the 112 Precinct for their swift actions in bringing this dangerous situation to an end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additional reporting by Xavier Serrano<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A hammer-wielding creep with more than 50 prior arrests chased a woman into a Jewish school in Queens…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[303,7702,57,9,24,63,122,124,123,5271,17131,58],"class_list":["post-307961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-crime","tag-judaism","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-schools","tag-stalking","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307961","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=307961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}