Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Suspect arrested in attack on Jews as mayor, Muslim community weigh in

Police have arrested a suspect in connection to the assault on Jewish diners at Sushi Fumi restaurant in the Beverly Grove neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Xavier Pabon, 30, has been booked for assault with a deadly weapon. Pabon was taken into custody at 10:15 p.m. Friday at his home in Banning, just outside Los Angeles. He is believed to be one of the primary suspects in the assault that took place on Tuesday, May 18 just before 10 p.m.

Pabon does not have a criminal history in Riverside County, according to court records.

LAPD has credited the arrest to the many tips they had received.

The initial bail was set at $275,000. LAPD said it requested his bail be enhanced “due to the nature of the crime being motivated by hate.”

Cell phone video of a group of men attacking diners at a restaurant in the Beverly Grove neighborhood in Los Angeles, Calif. May 18, 2021

CBSLA obtained cell phone video of a group of men attacking diners at a restaurant in the Beverly Grove neighborhood in Los Angeles, Calif. May 18, 2021 Courtesy of CBSLA

“He was ultimately tracked down and taken into custody without incident on the charge of assault with a deadly weapon” said LAPD in its news release.

LAPD is still searching for the other suspects in the assault.

Witness Natalie Schneider had told the Forward that a caravan of pro-Palestinian protestors threw glass bottles at them and yelled antisemitic slurs. In a video that captured the incident someone from the sidewalk can be heard yelling, “Fuck You” at the caravan. Shortly after, a few of the pro-Palestinian protestors started attacking the diners.

“They asked who is Jewish and after some of the diners said they are, they started beating at them,” said one eyewitness.

City officials and community groups strongly and quickly condemned the assault.

“There is simply no place for antisemitism, discrimination, or prejudice of any kind in Los Angeles. And we will never tolerate bigotry and violence in our communities,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti on Twitter. “L.A is a city of belonging, not of hate.”

Witnesses said the attackers had come from a pro-Palestinian march in front of the Federal Building organized in part by Americans Muslims for Palestine.

The group’s West Coast director, Shakeel Syed, told the Forward his group had nothing to do with the attackers.

“We do not know anything about the event you’re referring to outside the Sushi restaurant, other than what’s reported in the press,” Syd wrote in an e-mail. “We neither know any of the people who’re involved in that incident nor know anything about the person who’s arrested.”

He pointed out that the protest ended at 3 p.m. at the attack occurred many hours later. The violence came amid a surge in antisemitic incidents sparked by the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas, which ended in a ceasefire Friday.

Salam Al-Marayati

Image by Muslim Public Affairs Council

Speaking on KPCC’s “AirTalk” program a day after the attack, Salam al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Pubic Affairs Council strongly denounced the attack. “What we saw on the video is nothing short of thuggery,” he said. “It’s despicable. Those individuals did not represent any of our organizations, and they had nothing to do with the just cause of statehood for the Palestinian people.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

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..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

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 credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link 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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.