White Man Punched In Face At Church Avenue Station In Bias Attack

An attack on a 44-year-old white man at an area subway station over the weekend is being classified as a hate crime, according to authorities.

The assault, which occurred at roughly 9:45pm on Friday on a platform at the Church Avenue B/Q station, left the victim with a bruised right eye and a bleeding nose, say police.

The assailant is described by cops as a black man in his 40s, and approximately 5 feet 11 inches tall.

A bystander, who asked not to be identified, told us the assailant shouted racially charged remarks at the victim’s girlfriend who came to his aid.

“Go ahead and pick up that white cracker. He doesn’t belong in this neighborhood — this is a black neighborhood,” the man allegedly said as he fled up the stairs at the station’s Saint Paul’s Place exit.

The witness, who noted that the assailant had a beard and wore a hooded top, along with a black cap with a crown-like symbol, said she pursued the assailant up the stairs. He spit in her face as he fled south down Saint Paul’s Place, she told us.

She told us she received a phone call from a detective at the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force later that night.

The victim was treated at the scene by EMS but he refused additional medical aid, according to police. No arrests have been made, and an investigation is ongoing.

Other crimes in our community have been tinged with the issues of gentrification and displacement. In 2014, three residents of an apartment at Ocean and Newkirk Avenues were robbed and forced out of their apartment by assailants who allegedly expressed frustration that more white people were entering the neighborhood. In another incident in 2014, anti- gentrification graffiti urging whites to leave the area appeared at the same Church Avenue B/Q station.