The attacker who shot a Jewish man and his 7-year-old son with BB gun pellets in Staten Island has been charged with a hate crime.
Jason Kish, 25, was pulled over around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday near where he pulled the BB gun trigger, according to the Staten Island district attorney’s office.
Kish was charged with assault as a hate crime and reckless endangerment for the Sunday attack.
Kish is accused of rolling up to the Island Kosher grocery store on Victory Blvd. near Carmel Ave. in Castleton Corners around 4:20 p.m. behind the wheel of a black Ford Mustang and targeting Isaac Klein, 32, and his son, Alexander.
He allegedly used an Orbitz gel-type BB gun to fire pellets at Klein and his son, who were both wearing yarmulkes.
Alexander was grazed in the ear while his father was hit in the chest. They refused medical attention at the scene.
Klein told told the Daily News on Monday that his son was traumatized following the attack and could not sleep that night.
“You have to think about the impact of this — no severe injury, but emotionally, the severity is real,” Mayor Adams said at a press conference. “That young man will never walk that street again, without thinking about that incident.”
The arrest came thanks to the “participation of every entity involved,” including the public, Adams said outside the 121st Precinct station house in Staten Island.
Hizzoner praised “the initial call stop that was carried out by the police officer, the detective doing their investigation and then everyday citizens who stated that we’re not going to accept hate.”
Kish, of Staten Island, took off in the Mustang with no front or rear plates after the shooting, police said.
As he sped off, a Ring-doorbell user about two blocks from the grocery store caught him on camera holding the BB gun out the driver’s side window.
About an hour after the attack, police pulled Kish over but let him go, unaware he had just shot Klein and his son, cops said.
A former neighbor of the shooter described him as a “punk” who terrorized the neighborhood alongside his brother.
“They were juvenile delinquents,” said the local resident. “Bad egg. This kid was a bad egg.”
The man did not want to be named out of fear of retaliation. But he told the Daily News that rumors still swirl through the neighborhood that the brothers once shot at an elderly woman with a BB gun.
“What would’ve provoked him?” questioned another woman who lives on the block and recalled the alleged incident. “She don’t bother nobody.”
“They just weren’t right, I don’t know what it was about them,” added the woman, who was also afraid to provide her name. “You could sense it.”
Kish could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.
