Staten
Island, NY – A bad sport enraged by the results of a youth basketball game sent
a barrage of vile, anti-Semitic text messages to an athletic official at the
Jewish Community Center of Staten Island, police sources said.
The
texts, which were reported to police on Friday night, went to a 53-year-old
woman at the center. Police have opened a hate crime investigation.
“I am about to put the JCC back in the
concentration camp,” one text reads, according to police sources. Another makes
reference to “Hitler Nation.”
Police
have an idea of who sent the messages, but so far, the investigation is
ongoing, sources said.
Ruth
Lasser, a spokeswoman for the JCC, said the texts stemmed from a teen
basketball league game at the organization’s Avis/South Shore center on Arthur
Kill Rd. in Arden Heights, but she couldn’t say when the game took place.
“I do know that there was a dispute of some
sort that came as a result of it,” she said. “The texts that followed were
about some sort of unhappiness about that game.”
She
called the texts “very disturbing.”
“The JCC has a long history, sports and
activities that teach you not only the programs, not only the sport, but also
sportsmanship,” Lasser said. “We work very hard to make sure we instill the
right values, so it is disturbing.”
