A 22-year-old Queens man already facing manslaughter charges over a fatal crash has been indicted on hate crime charges for allegedly vandalizing a kosher bagel shop that displayed Israeli flags, the Times of Israel reports.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced on Monday that Dawood Faisal was indicted for targeting Bagels & Co. on Union Turnpike in Fresh Meadows on two occasions in May.
Prosecutors say Faisal knocked over plant stands outside the Jewish-owned business and, during one of the incidents, threw dirt and debris toward the Israeli flags and the front of the store.
“As alleged, Dawood Faisal repeatedly targeted a Fresh Meadows business specifically because it is Jewish-owned and featured Israeli flags, and destroyed property as an expression of antisemitism,” Katz said. “Bias crimes are an affront to our entire community and will not be tolerated.”
Faisal was arraigned Monday on an indictment charging him with two counts of third-degree criminal mischief as a hate crime. Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael Hartofilis ordered him to return to court on November 12. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.
The first incident took place on May 15 at around 6:18 p.m., prosecutors said, when Faisal allegedly knocked over nine metal plant stands outside the kosher shop. After spilling dirt and plants onto the sidewalk, he picked up some of the debris and twice threw it at the business.
He allegedly returned to the store in the early hours of May 23 and pushed or kicked over 11 metal plant stands, again spilling their contents onto the sidewalk. Prosecutors said he also tried unsuccessfully to kick over a large clay pot before pulling the plants out of it by hand.
The investigation was carried out by the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force together with the Queens District Attorney’s Hate Crimes Bureau. Local residents and Jewish community activists had previously rallied at Bagels & Co. in a show of solidarity, and Faisal had initially been arraigned on hate crime and criminal mischief charges over the incidents earlier this year.
Separately, Faisal was indicted in June on manslaughter, assault and other charges stemming from a May crash that killed 71-year-old Cara Trager and injured her husband. Prosecutors alleged he sped through two red lights on Francis Lewis Boulevard before crashing into two vehicles, sending one of them into a crosswalk where the couple was walking. They said he had been traveling at more than 75 miles per hour in a 35-mph zone and tried to flee the scene on foot before being detained by passersby.
Authorities have not alleged the fatal crash itself was a hate crime, and there did not appear to be a direct connection between the collision and the vandalism case.
Cara Trager was a Queens-based journalist and a prominent member of the local Jewish community. She supported Jewish institutions including the Solomon Schechter School of Queens and her family’s synagogue, Etz Hayim at Hollis Hills Bayside. Her husband, Michael Trager, told the New York Post last month that the crash site in a heavily Jewish area raised questions for him about whether antisemitism may have played some role, while acknowledging he was not alleging Faisal deliberately tried to kill his wife.
Michael Trager also said he wanted to meet with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to urge him to speak out against antisemitism. “I want to see that he cares… I want to see that my fellow Jews can live safely and peacefully in a city,” he said.
According to the Times of Israel, Jews are targeted in hate crimes in New York City more than all other groups combined.
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