Lemrick Nelson, who was convicted of stabbing Hasidic scholar Yankel Rosenbaum during the 1991 Crown Heights race riots, was found stabbed in the head early Sunday morning. Nelson was found unconscious on Riverside Drive near West 168th Street, outside of his car, at 1 a.m. A bloodied ice pick was also discovered next to him; he was taken to Harlem Hospital Center where he is now in stable condition. A spokesman for the Rosenbaum family told the Daily News, "Thou who drowns someone else, will drown. It is now that the stabber gets stabbed. To Nelson, a crime with a knife involved is like bagel and lox."
According to the Post, the 35-year-old "had driven across the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey, where he now lives, cops said." It's believed he was involved in a road rage incident "that turned physical." The NY Times reminds readers of the Crown Heights riots:
The Crown Heights disturbances were set in motion on Aug. 19, 1991, when Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black boy, was struck and killed by a vehicle in the motorcade of the leader of the Lubavitcher Hasidic sect.
The authorities said Mr. Nelson, then 16, was part of an angry crowd of blacks who, not long after the accident, descended upon Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year-old scholar from Australia, a few blocks away. Mr. Rosenbaum was stabbed four times and later died.
Mr. Nelson was acquitted in State Supreme Court but then convicted in a federal trial. After that verdict was overturned, he was convicted in a second trial of violating Mr. Rosenbaum’s civil rights.
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison but was released the next year because he had already served time for the overturned conviction.
Rosenbaum's brother told the Post, "I feel for him as much as he felt for my brother. This guy, we know, is a bad person, a violent person. There's an irony in it that he's been involved in two attacks that we know of, and now he's attacked with an ice pick. It certainly doesn't bring my brother back, but maybe he understands the pain and suffering my brother felt."
Police are reviewing surveillance video from the area.
