{"id":106725,"date":"2026-02-06T05:37:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T05:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/106725\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T05:37:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T05:37:06","slug":"community-activists-address-instances-of-ethnic-intimidation-in-pittsburgh-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/106725\/","title":{"rendered":"Community activists address instances of ethnic intimidation in Pittsburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">PITTSBURGH \u2014 A man police say took a knife and slashed an Israeli flag has been charged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Thirty-four-year-old Ivo Stjepovic was arraigned and released on non-monetary bond Thursday evening. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Pittsburgh Police say he\u2019s the man caught on home surveillance footage back in January in the city\u2019s Mexican War Streets neighborhood. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019m very glad this person has been identified,\u201d Deena Blumenfeld told Channel 11. It was her flag that was cut. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">She says her home has been targeted nineteen times in two years. She believes it\u2019s because she\u2019s Jewish.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s a good reminder of where we are as Jews and a time of pretty wide antisemitic incidents,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Stjepovic faces a misdemeanor charge of ethnic intimidation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">His arrest and release came on the same day local leaders rallied around a black business owner whose body shop was vandalized last month. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">It was tagged with graffiti and a racial slur.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/slur-graffiti-spray-painted-onto-auto-body-shop-owned-by-community-activist-police-investigating\/LRUXIJ37Z5F2NJXTOJ5DSVFY5A\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/slur-graffiti-spray-painted-onto-auto-body-shop-owned-by-community-activist-police-investigating\/LRUXIJ37Z5F2NJXTOJ5DSVFY5A\/\">PREVIOUS COVERAGE &gt;&gt;&gt; Slur, graffiti spray-painted onto auto body shop owned by community activist; police investigating<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019ve owned my business for over 33 years. During that time, my business has never been attacked,\u201d William Anderson said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Anderson, who is also a community activist, says the incident came just a month after his shop was robbed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">\u201cYou\u2019ve only made my resolve stronger,\u201d he said in a press conference on Thursday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Anderson was flanked by more than a dozen leaders and organizers, including ones from the city\u2019s Latino and Jewish communities. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">\u201cWhen something happens to one of us, it will eventually happen to all of us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">So far, no one has been arrested for either incident at the body shop. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Stjepovic is set to be back in front of a judge on February 24th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TOP STORIES FROM CHANNEL 11 NEWS <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH \u2014 A man police say took a knife and slashed an Israeli flag has been charged. Thirty-four-year-old&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[34530,51399,869,51397,2163,51398,51396,139,859,73,75,74,867,866,51400,420,51401,860],"class_list":["post-106725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-anderson","tag-blumenfeld","tag-channel_11","tag-dina_blumenfeld","tag-homewood","tag-ivo_stepovich","tag-mexican_war_streets","tag-news","tag-ott_news","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-rich","tag-rich_pierce","tag-stepovich","tag-video","tag-william_anderson","tag-wpxi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}