North Brunswick meeting

Residents speak out at a community meeting in North Brunswick on Monday, July 13, 2015. (Brian Amaral | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

(Brian Amaral)

NORTH BRUNSWICK -- His alleged attacks over two and a half years earned him a nickname, police say: The crew-cut bully.

Nyle Kilgore, 24, is accused of assaulting several residents of North Brunswick in the Governor's Point and Colony Oaks neighborhoods. The motive is yet unclear, but the alleged victims shared one trait: They were all Indians, according to police.

The last alleged incident, in early July, led to the hospitalization of a victim, Kilgore's arrest and sudden fears of racial targeting in this quiet town.

"How am I safe?" said Shilpa Patel at a special meeting Monday night at Town Hall. "I don't want to turn around every time I walk my dog to see if I'm going to be the next victim."

Police say they still don't know how many people they believe Kilgore attacked. He's been charged with aggravated assault and was released on $50,000 bail, according to jail records.

The latest victim was found lying on the ground, bleeding heavily from the head, by a passing motorist. A search turned up Kilgore, and he was arrested July 1, police said.

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At Monday's meeting, several residents pointed to a recent string of incidents that targeted South Asians, helping stoke concerns in the community.

The arrest comes just months after a gang of criminals from Texas allegedly targeted five Indian families in Middlesex County, bursting into homes, binding family members, assaulting residents and making off with valuables. The incident also seems to share some similarities with the Sinha case in Old Bridge five years ago: An Indian man out walking with his family was viciously assaulted with a punch to the head, authorities said, and died when in the hospital days later.

It's left some members of the growing Central Jersey Indian population wondering: Why us?

For Councilwoman Shanti Narra, a defense attorney who practices in New York City, stereotypes might be at play. The notion that Indians might be more passive; that they might have more valuables; that they might be less familiar with the American justice system and won't follow through on a criminal case.

Reginald Johnson, an official with the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office who handles bias incidents, said that around the state, every race, ethnicity and religion is targeted by bias crimes. Jews are most often targeted based on religion, blacks based on race, Johnson said.

"Basically everyone is targeted in one way or another," Johnson said.

The case is now in the hands of the prosecutor's office, which will determine whether bias crime charges are appropriate. Bias crimes were recently made more difficult to prosecute after a state Supreme Court decision that said the mindset of the assailant, not the victim, was crucial in determining a bias crime.

Police said a few factors conspired to keep the alleged North Brunswick attacker unidentified for more than two years, even as the violence progressed. Some of the first assaults didn't connect -- one was a mistaken identity, another was deemed a neighbor dispute, said Kenneth McCormick, the police director. Also, the assailant moved sometime in the intervening months, McCormick said.

Mayor Francis "Mac" Womack, who presided over the meeting, fielded suggestions about citizen police academies, better public notifications, and a broad mission statement against bias.

"We have to stand up: This is not acceptable, we're not tolerating it, and that's all there is," Womack said.

Brian Amaral may be reached at bamaral@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bamaral44. Find NJ.com on Facebook.