Black Fashion Student Sues Shomrim Hasidic Security Patrol Over Brooklyn Beating

Taj Patterson

By JTA June 17, 2014

A gay black man who says he was beaten by a group of Hasidic men in Brooklyn sued five of his alleged assailants and a local Jewish volunteer security patrol.

Taj Patterson

Taj Patterson, 22, who was brutally beaten on Dec. 1 in the Williamsburg section, filed the lawsuit Monday in Brooklyn Supreme Court against the five men, who have been indicted on gang assault charges, The New York Daily News reported.

The suit seeks unspecified damages for Patterson’s injuries — a fractured eye socket, torn retina and multiple contusions — and accuses the Shomrim security patrol, to which some of the assailants belonged, of negligence.

The assailants are believed to have erroneously confused Patterson, a fashion student at the New York City College of Technology, with a suspect who had vandalized several cars in the neighborhood.

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