Once again, thanks to social media and an irresponsible person behind a keyboard, panic was spread through the Flatbush Midwood Jewish community.
On Monday afternoon, an unverified and totally anonymous Twitter account tweeted that the NYPD had arrested a person on Avenue M and East 18 Street – and the “man had explosives on him and was threatening to kill Jews”.
There is no truth to any of this whatsoever.
YWN has spoken to multiple high-ranking brass in the NYPD and have confirmed that the following is exactly what happened.
Flatbush Shomrim and NYPD had been following what appeared to be an emotionally disturbed man for around 45 minutes until he was stopped by police at Avenue M and East 18 Street. While being questioned by the officers, the man seemed delirious and a decision was made to have FDNY-EMS transport him to Coney Island Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.
There was never any explosives on his possession, nor any threats ever made against anyone – of any ethnicity.
In addition to being taken to a hospital, the NYPD Counterterrorism Division did a full workup on the man’s identity.
There is no reason for any concern, or any reason to believe that this man is any danger to the community.
Police added that “the only danger to the community are irresponsible people on social media who caused people to panic for no reason whatsoever”.
It’s a good thing that people remain vigilant, and if you see something, say something.
(Charles Gross – YWN)
9 Responses
The Rabbonim are right, we should not be connected to Social Media….
I was out and about today, including on Avenue M, and did not feel any panic. Nor did I see anyone else panicking. Nor did anyone I speak with say anything about this.
Perhaps your headline should be “False Social Media Report Sends Panic Through the Small Number of Flatbush Jewish Community Social Media Addicts”.
Let’s see: Social media, frum Jewish neighborhood, unwarrented panic. Maybe this explains how our next president captured the frum vote.
Bp101,
And if people died ch”v the rabbanim would be wrong?
No one is asked to believe every tweet they read
Perhaps someone can enlighten us as to “who” were these erhliche yidden in Flatbush who were in a state of panic?? There is nothing on any of the major NYC news sites reporting that yidden were seen running from the seforim store down the block or the As Yashir shul nearby screaming gevalt! There is nothing on the news showing yidden hiding behind buildings or c’v jumping out of their windows… Who writes these headlines and what do they have between their ears??
I live right off Avenue M near the store where this man was arrested and I would like to share the story that I was told regarding this incident. For starters I’d like to say that there was no panic. The story that I was told was that this man was circling the area multiple times when finally someone noticed he was acting suspicious and called the Police Department. When the Police arrived I was told that this man had wires inside his coat with ear pieces in his ear… There was no shouting of anti Semitic remarks but this man was reportedly all wired up.
The onus is on you!
Think about it..
if you hear something say something..
Someone must of heard something that caused him to say something..
Someone was a relative of a member of shomrim or of the nypd that person then decided to tell a unwarranted story to his relative..
Makes sense to me
If this man was takeh emotionally disturbed, why didn’t the NYPD follow proper protocol? They were supposed to gun him down execution style on the streets of Brooklyn.