Metro

Local officials label Brooklyn hammer attack as a hate crime

Elected city officials Friday branded the deadly hammer rampage at a Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn a hate crime.

“Let’s be clear, this was a racial hate crime – plain and simple,” Councilwoman Margaret Chin (D-Manhattan) said at a rally alongside other dignitaries and Asian-American advocates outside of Sheephead Bay’s Seaport Buffet where the Jan. 15 attack occurred.

The bloody attack left dead three Asian workers – 34-year-old chef Fufai Pun, 60-year-old owner Kheong Ng-Thang, and 50-year-old manager Tsz Mat Pun.

Brooklyn resident Arthur Martunovich, 34, is accused of carrying out the hammer-swinging attack, which he told cops was inspired by a movie about Chinese men mistreating women, police sources have said. The NYPD is investigating the attack as a bias incident.

“He entered the restaurant motivated by a racial stereotype of gender relations in my community with a goal to massacre,” Chin said of Martunovich.





She called upon Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez to prosecute the murders as a hate crime.

“This will ensure the coward who took their lives will answer for the ugliness of his crime,” the councilwoman said.

Councilman Chaim Deutsch (D-Brooklyn) added, “An attack on one is an attack on all. …Hate has no place in Sheepshead Bay, and hate has no place in our city.”

“We have a saying in the Jewish religion that sometimes God sends the cure before he sends the plague,” Deutsch said. “Well, the plague is here, and the plague is hatred.”

Councilman Mark Treyger (D-Brooklyn) called the victims of the attack “hard-working people in our community” who were “butchered because of hate.”





The deadly incident is “an act of evil carried out by a deranged individual,” Councilman Peter Koo (D-Queens) added.

A rep for the Brooklyn DA said the slayings are being investigated as hate crimes.

Meanwhile, Sam Tsang, an NYPD Asian community liaison representing the families of victims Fufai Pun and Tsz Mat Pun, said the kin remain “scared and upset.

“They don’t even want to talk,” Tsang said, adding that “they really appreciate the company and Councilman Deutsch and the [61st] Precinct for supporting them.”

“They lost their families’ main incomes,” said Tsang.





NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said at an unrelated press conference Friday that the attack has been investigated as a hate crime since the onset.

“Obviously, you have an individual that went in and attacked three individuals of Asian descent — also bypassed many people,” Shea said of Martunovich. “There are conflicting statements that were made as to the determination whether or not this would be a bias.”

Martunovich, who was charged with murder, attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon for the attack, remains in custody under psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue Hospital Center.

Additional reporting by Stephanie Pagones





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