MIAMI BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - Police have arrested a man who, they said, hurled anti-Semitic threats at a 12-year-old boy and his father during a night out on South Beach.
According to Miami Beach Police, Lamont Collins approached the defenseless 12-year-old child and his father Sunday night and screamed violent anti-Semitic threats on and just off busy Lincoln Road.
“The man begins threatening their lives and directing these comments based off of their apparent religion,” Miami Beach Police officer Ernesto Rodriguez said.
Collins was cuffed and jailed, and he could be facing more charges.
According to the arrest form, Collins “for no apparent reason began chanting ‘I’m going to [expletive] kill you, [expletive] Jews.'”
The @ADL_Florida reaction to the assault of a Jewish father and son. They were confronted Sun. night by a man yelling anti-Semitic threats, according to @MiamiBeachPD. Here’s a flyer released tonight by police. @wsvn #7News #1stOn7 https://t.co/nRz8cQXGon pic.twitter.com/5cbJh6hlkW
— Sheldon Fox-7 News (@fox_sheldon) December 15, 2020
The boy and his father ran for safety into the famous Frieze Ice Cream Factory shop on Michigan Avenue, but they weren’t entirely safe because they were followed inside, according to Rodriguez.
“At this point, a busy ice cream shop, subject comes in, continues to make threats,” Rodriguez said.
The arrest form said Collins “positioned himself across the listed establishment where he began repeatedly shouting, ‘[expletive] the Jews, your time has come.'”
No one was hurt.
Collins was caught a couple of blocks away from the scene, after police were called.
Once he was in custody, Rodriguez said disturbing details kept coming in.
“Continuous threats, acting extremely erratically,” he said. “We immediately detained him, we searched the backpack that’s with him. What’s disturbing is within that backpack, we find two knives, so we don’t know what this man was capable of.”
The Florida branch of the Anti-Defamation League reacted to the story that aired first on 7, tweeting it is “horrified that a Jewish man and his son were subject to anti-Semitic threats in Miami Beach during Hanukkah.”
Collins faces charges of assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. His charges could be enhanced to hate crime charges.
The State Attorney’s Office will be reviewing the case to see if it is worthy of a hate crime enhancement.
According to police, Collins was briefly hospitalized before he was taken to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in West Miami-Dade.
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