NYPD: Woman Spit on Boy Because He's Jewish

A New York City woman with the last name of Darling was allegedly anything but to an 8-year-old Jewish boy and his younger siblings who were playing in their neighborhood, CNN reports. Christina Darling, 21, has been arrested in connection with a Jan. 14 incident outside a Brooklyn synagogue. She spit on the boy and screamed anti-Semitic remarks at him and his 2-year-old and 7-year-old siblings, NYPD officials say. The incident was captured on video, which is included in this CBS2 report.

The woman said things such as “Hitler should have killed you all” while walking by the children, their father Aryah Fried said during an interview with CBS New York. The 8-year-old boy confronted Darling in an effort to protect his younger siblings, which made her angrier, the boy’s father says. The woman ran back to the children, spat in the older boy’s face, and said, “... we will kill you all, I know where you live, and we’ll make sure to get you all next time,” Fried says. He says he will encourage his son to avoid trying to reason with such people in the future.

The NYPD announced Darling’s arrest on Friday. She is charged with multiple crimes including aggravated harassment as a hate crime and menacing. It was unclear whether she was charged with first-degree or second-degree aggravated harassment. If prosecuted on a first-degree charge, Darling could be convicted of a class E felony under New York law. However, a second-degree charge is a class A misdemeanor in New York. The penalty for a class E felony conviction in New York is up to four years in jail, while a class A misdemeanor carries a possible year-long jail sentence, according to the New York State Unified Court System. There are multiple types of menacing, most of which are misdemeanor counts, and it was unclear under which type Darling has been charged. (More antisemitism stories.)