{"id":10122,"date":"2013-09-08T10:58:11","date_gmt":"2013-09-08T10:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=10122"},"modified":"2013-09-08T10:59:16","modified_gmt":"2013-09-08T10:59:16","slug":"racist-rampage-leaves-man-brain-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=10122","title":{"rendered":"Racist rampage leaves man brain-dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"braindead\"<\/a>It came out of nowhere.<\/p>\n

A black man allegedly went on a rampage in Union Square on Wednesday afternoon and left a complete stranger brain-dead in the process.<\/p>\n

Police said that the attack may have been a hate crime.<\/p>\n

Friends of Jeffrey Babbitt, 62, were shocked to hear about the random act of violence that left the gentle, retired train conductor in a coma, CBS 2\u2032s Dave Carlin reported on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe that. I don\u2019t know why that happened. He is very nice,\u201d Igor Sapozhnikov said.<\/p>\n

Babbitt was minding his own business as he walked through the crowd near the chess boards in Union Square when a man made a hateful announcement and began his rampage, witnesses said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said \u2018the next white person who walks by I\u2019m going to [expletive],\u2019\u201d one woman said. \u201cHis fist went in and the man\u2019s head bobbed and he hit the ground and you could hear his skull hitting the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man continued his rampage before demanding to see police officers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe stood there and hit two more people and asked for the police to come,\u201d Michael Benson said.<\/p>\n

Stunned witnesses counted a total of three people attacked. The suspect, Lashawn Marten, 31, remained at the scene until police arrived.<\/p>\n

Babbitt was on the ground with blood flowing from his head. Nearby were two other victims icing their faces.<\/p>\n

Because of Marten\u2019s alleged comments about targeting white people the incident could result in hate crime charges in addition to felony assault charges, according to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously our Hate Crimes Task Force is involved in aspects of that case,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n

Witnesses said they were amazed at the brazen, public nature of the assault.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is such a crowded area. You\u2019d expect it in a back alley, but there are so many people here. That\u2019s the strange part,\u201d Garrett Browning said.<\/p>\n

Babbitt was taken to Bellevue Hospital. Family and friends said that he is in a coma and has been declared brain-dead.<\/p>\n

His 92-year-old mother, Hedda, was by his side. She shared a Sheepshead Bay apartment with her son. He was her primary caregiver. – CBS New York<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It came out of nowhere. A black man allegedly went on a rampage in Union Square on Wednesday afternoon and left a complete stranger brain-dead in the process. Police said that the attack may have been a hate crime. Friends of Jeffrey Babbitt, 62, were shocked to hear about the random act of violence that … Continue reading “Racist rampage leaves man brain-dead”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[3703,5981,501,5980,885,5982,5979,1638],"class_list":["post-10122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","tag-black-racists","tag-brain-dead","tag-hate-crime","tag-jeffrey-babbitt","tag-new-york","tag-racial-attack","tag-union-square","tag-us"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/braindead.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10122"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10125,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10122\/revisions\/10125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}