Ehud Halevy, Jewish Victim of Caught-on-Tape Police Beating, Files Civil Right Suit

A Brooklyn man who was beaten by New York police officers at a Chabad youth center in Brooklyn has filed a civil rights lawsuit.
Ehud Halevy, 21, filed the lawsuit Jan. 22 in Brooklyn federal court. The assault last October was captured by a security camera.
The video shows Halevy exchanging words with a male police officer and pushing away his hands after the officer had taken out handcuffs. Shortly after, the cop assumes a fighting stance and punches Halevy several times as he and a female officer wrestle Halevy to the couch where he was found sleeping.
During the two-minute incident, the female officer appears to use a truncheon and pepper spray on Halevy. Eight police officers arrive later to handcuff him.
Halevy reportedly had been sleeping on the ALIYA Institute’s couch with permission for about a month before the assault. A volunteer security guard who was not aware of the arrangement had called the police upon discovering the man, who was shirtless and sleeping in the lounge and appeared to be drunk,
Halevy was arrested on assault, resisting arrest and trespassing charges and spent four days in jail before the charges were dropped.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 2
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 3
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 4
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture ‘Shtisel’ star Sasson Gabay is happy to be back playing a complex haredi Orthodox Jew in ‘Kugel’
-
Fast Forward Noa Argamani, ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt among over a dozen Jews on 2025 TIME 100 list
-
Fast Forward US claims Mohsen Mahdawi’s activism could ‘potentially undermine’ prospect of peace in Gaza
-
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.