Arrest Made Following Sunset Park Mosque Assault

Pictured: the Muslim Community Center on 53rd Street. Photos by John V. Santore

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN — A man has been arrested following a brutal attack on two teenagers outside a Sunset Park mosque last Sunday.

Local resident Christopher Vallaro, 31, who lives across the street from the Madine Muslim Community Center (MCC), located at 5224 3rd Ave., was taken into custody Wednesday in the NYPD's 72nd Precinct. He was charged with assault, harassment and menacing by Brooklyn prosecutors. A spokesman for the District Attorney's office said his bail had been set at $25,000.

Early on the morning of June 26, Vallaro assaulted two teenagers outside the MCC. Security camera footage of the attack obtained by Buzzfeed showed him repeatedly punching and kicking one teen who was on the ground, before chasing a second off camera.

Both suffered injuries, according to the DA's office. Photos published by a charity group called Muslims Giving Back, which operates out of the MCC and to which the teens belonged, showed the aftermath of the assault.

Prior to the incident, the teens had been talking to a woman alone inside Vallaro's car. As reported by DNAinfo, the NYPD said the boys had been "flirting" with her.

However, Mohamed Bahe, who directs the MCC, told Patch on Thursday that the boys may have thought the woman was a prostitute, and were asking her if she needed help.

Bahe said that prostitution is common in the area, and that he himself sometimes approaches strange cars in an attempt to get them to drive away. To that end, he said he thought the teens had "played cops, in a way."

Bahe said the boys left the car, after which the woman called Vallaro on her phone, possibly telling him that someone was trying to rob the vehicle. (Bahe said he learned those details from NYPD investigators.) The boys then returned, and started speaking with the woman again, at which point Vallaro appeared and attacked them.

However, Bahe confirmed that the boys also heard Vallaro say "you f*cking terrorist" during the assault, leading Muslims Giving Back to call the attack a hate crime.

The New York Daily News reported that Vallaro had also said, “You Muslims are the cause of all the problems in the world," attributing the information to a posting on a Facebook page maintained by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Patch, however, could not find the post, and Bahe said he never heard the boys make that claim.

The NYPD said earlier this week that it was not investigating the matter as a hate crime, though the Daily News reported that the Brooklyn DA's office was still assessing how to weigh the incident. (A spokesman for the DA declined to comment.)

Mohamed Bahe in the MCC.

On Thursday, Bahe didn't push for a hate crimes designation, though he did say the incident had rattled some of those attending the mosque.

"We felt very vulnerable," he said, adding that several families stayed home during some of the final days of Ramadan.

Bahe said he had previously asked the NYPD's 72nd precinct for added protection during the holiday, when people attend mosque activities at all hours of the day, but that he hadn't received any until after the attack, when the NYPD stationed an officer outside the building.

According to the Sunset Park Voice, Captain Emmanuel Gonzalez, who heads the precinct, visited the mosque to apologize for not increasing security sooner.

The mosque will continue asking for security during special events, Bahe said, as well as hiring security guards on its own, as it has done before.

Bahe said the MCC has about 300 members from around Brooklyn, and has good relations with the Sunset Park community.

He noted that the organization hosts a food pantry every Friday, providing meals for 75 locals, almost none of whom are Muslim.

"I've never had any incidents," Bahe said.

Even so, he said reports of anti-Muslim violence around the country are troubling.

"If we don't speak up on behalf of our faith, somebody else is going to," Bahe said. He referenced the actions of other civil rights movements, such as that for gay equality, as a model. "We have nothing to hide. If we believe our faith is peaceful, we have no problem sharing it."