A 34-year-old woman punched and shoved three Muslims wearing hijabs — one of them a 12-year-old girl — during a wild 16-minute, hate-filled rampage in Brooklyn, telling one of her stunned victims to “get out of this country,” police and elected officials said.
Megan Horne was taken into custody on Wednesday for the unprovoked attacks and is now facing hate crime charges, police said.
The bias-fueled spree drew the ire of Mayor Mamdani late Wednesday.
“I am outraged by the despicable, cowardly attacks against Muslim New Yorkers in Bay Ridge last week — one of which was on a 12-year-old girl,” Mamdani posted on X. “This violence is unacceptable, and we know that all too often visibly Muslim, hijab-wearing women and girls bear the brunt of it.”
“Muslim New Yorkers deserve to live with safety and dignity, and to be able to walk our streets free from harassment, threats, or harm,” the mayor continued. “Islamophobia has no place in our city, and violence or intimidation against Muslim New Yorkers is unacceptable.”
The attacks began at about 2:20 p.m. Friday when the Staten Island woman stormed up and kicked a 33-year-old woman in a hijab — a head scarf that religious Muslim women wear — outside a preschool on Fifth Ave. near 89th St., according to officials.
She yelled, “Get out of this country!” and fled, Assistant District Attorney Ari Rottenberg said Thursday.
Five minutes later, Horne ran up to a 12-year-old Muslim girl near the corner of 92nd St. and Gelston Ave., punching the preteen in the face before storming off, the prosecutor said.
Finally, at 2:36 p.m., Horne shoved a 39-year-old Muslim woman about to step onto a B53 bus, telling her, “I go first!” authorities allege.
None of Horne’s victims was seriously injured.
“Each of the complainants was wearing a hijab at the time of the incident,” Rottenberg said.
“While there were, thankfully, no physical injuries, I can only imagine the lasting fear and trauma that this has caused,” City Councilwoman Kayla Santosuosso (D-Bay Ridge) wrote on X.
Members of the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force arrested Horne for the three attacks on Wednesday, charging her with multiple counts of assault and aggravated harassment as hate crimes, meaning she will be facing stiffer possible jail sentences when convicted.
Rottenberg said police found surveillance footage of Horne from the first attack in the spree, showing her getting into a Ford Bronco registered to someone connected to Horne through domestic-incident reports.
The two adult victims weren’t able to pick Horne out of a photo array, Rottenberg said — but Horne told police she was the person in an image from the surveillance footage.
“That’s me in the pictures. I don’t remember that day. I drink a lot. I drank all that day,” she told cops, according to Rottenberg.
The suspect had been arrested for punching and shoving a 64-year-old woman she didn’t know back on Oct. 5, but that incident was not considered a bias crime, officials said.
“Grateful to see an arrest made in the disgusting, Islamophobic attacks in Bay Ridge,” Gov. Hochul posted on social media Wednesday. “No New Yorker, especially a child, should ever be targeted because of their faith. We will continue to crack down on hate crimes to the fullest extent of the law.”
Rottenberg asked Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Edward Daniels to set bail. But the judge agreed with Horne’s defense attorney to let her free on supervised release, provided she completes a planned 28-day inpatient alcohol treatment program.
Her lawyer, Isabel Zeitz-Moskin of Brooklyn Defender Services, said Horne has a “stable residence” living with her aunt, and was planning to start a new job Monday as a dispatcher and administrative assistant.
“There are also clearly identification issues here, as the people noted,” Zeitz-Moskin said. “There are multiple missed hits on the photo arrays from the complaining witnesses. And it’s unclear whether the surveillance indicated actually depicts the alleged incidents or if it’s just from another place.”
“She has every intention of returning to court,” the attorney added. “She wants to fight these charges.”
