Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Black Fashion Student Sues Shomrim Hasidic Security Patrol Over Brooklyn Beating

A gay black man who says he was beaten by a group of Hasidic men in Brooklyn sued five of his alleged assailants and a local Jewish volunteer security patrol.

Taj Patterson

Taj Patterson, 22, who was brutally beaten on Dec. 1 in the Williamsburg section, filed the lawsuit Monday in Brooklyn Supreme Court against the five men, who have been indicted on gang assault charges, The New York Daily News reported.

The suit seeks unspecified damages for Patterson’s injuries — a fractured eye socket, torn retina and multiple contusions — and accuses the Shomrim security patrol, to which some of the assailants belonged, of negligence.

The assailants are believed to have erroneously confused Patterson, a fashion student at the New York City College of Technology, with a suspect who had vandalized several cars in the neighborhood.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.