A man who argued with pro-Palestinian protesters before ramming his car into one Tuesday on Manhattan’s Upper East Side has been charged with assault, police said.
The man, Reuven Kahane, 57, was arguing with two protesters around 9 a.m. when he hit a 55-year-old woman with his vehicle, police said. In response, protesters rammed Mr. Kahane’s car.
Mr. Kahane was charged with second-degree assault. The affected protester, Maryellen Novak, was treated at Weill Cornell Medical Center for minor injuries. She was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and unlawful assembly. The other protester involved, John Rozendaal, 63, was also arrested and charged with criminal mischief.
Mr. Kahane was arrested Wednesday morning and released without bail. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute Ms. Novak and Mr. Rozendaal, according to a statement.
Mr. Kahane’s lawyers, Sara Shulevitz and Mindy Meyer, said “more facts will come to light” during the case.
“We are confident that our client will be exonerated of all charges,” they said.
The protesters were part of a group of about 25 people demonstrating outside 755 Park Avenue, police said, and the group was walking away when Mr. Kahane got into “a verbal argument” with two of them.
A student group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, disputed the police version, saying in a report that Mr. Kahane approached the protesters in his car and asked for a flyer before “grabbing the protester’s arm.”
As they were leaving, the group said, he “went around the block to our peaceful protest” and punched a person they identified as one of the team members. de-escalation of the group.
This is the second time in a week that members of their group have been attacked and the fourth hospitalization, the press release said.
In a phone call Wednesday, Mr. Rozendaal said he was also at the protest as a de-escalator at the request of the student group. He had attended other demonstrations as a protester, but on Tuesday his only role was to “keep people safe,” he said.
Mr. Rozendaal, a musician who lives in Manhattan, declined to elaborate on what exactly led to the confrontation with Mr. Kahane or its aftermath. But he said that during their protest outside the home of a Columbia University administrator, they were approached by people who were “really, really angry.”
“It was a challenge during those two hours to have compassion for everyone at the scene, because anger comes from fear and it doesn’t come from nowhere,” he said. “But I also felt like it put people at risk.”
As the group left the area, he said, the confrontation with Mr. Kahane took place.
Mr. Rozendaal, who was not beaten, said he was released from the booking center – where arrested people are taken for processing – around 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday and was informed that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office had “declined to pursue” his case. .
“The story is about what is happening to the people of Gaza and the complicity of the United States and Columbia University,” he said. “And the other part of the story is the courage of the Columbia University students who refused to be complicit. And I was there to support that.
Susan C. Beachy contributed to the research.
