Bill De Blasio Vows To Catch Menachem Stark’s Killer
Image by VOS IZ NEIAS
New York City’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, said finding the killer of haredi Orthodox Brooklyn landlord Menachem Stark is a priority and condemned the New York Post’s coverage of the incident.
De Blasio, who has been roundly criticized for his silence in the case, ripped the newspaper for its coverage on the front page of its Jan. 4 edition that included a headline blaring “Who Didn’t Want Him Dead?” next to a photo of Stark, 39, sporting a large shtreimel and graying side curls.
“It was unfair. It was hurtful. And there is really no place for that kind of thing in New York City,” de Blasio told the WMCA’s Orthodox-interest “Community Matters” radio program. “I know a lot of people are outraged, and I share their outrage.”
The mayor, who was sworn in at the start of the year, vowed to find Stark’s killer or killers.
“It’s a tragedy what happened to Mr. Stark. And my heart goes out for the family and they are in my thoughts and prayers,” de Blasio said. “And I know that for many, many people in the Jewish community this has been a very painful moment and I want to say: First of all, we are going to get to the bottom of it. We will find who did this to him and who robbed children of a father and a wife of a husband.”
Meanwhile, police reportedly found a new clue in the case, with WABC-TV reporting over the weekend that a cellphone being used as a tracking device was found taped under Stark’s car. Police are trying to identify the phone’s owner.
Stark’s body was found Jan. 3 on suburban Long Island some 16 miles away from his office in the heavily Satmar section of Williamsburg, from where he was kidnapped the previous evening. He reportedly was suffocated before his body was placed in a dumpster outside a Great Neck gas station and burned, according to police.
Video footage taken from his office reportedly showed Stark being taken into a van after a struggle outside his office. The identity of his abductors is not known.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
