A 5-year-old videotape of a black man urging attacks on Jews in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights has led to a second arrest in the 1991 slaying of a Hasidic scholar.
Tuesday’s arrest of Charles Price, 43, on federal charges was praised by friends and the family of the slain Yankel Rosenbaum, but it also renewed their criticism of the initial handling of the case.
Price’s lawyer proclaimed the suspect’s innocence. “My understanding is there is no videotape of him at the crime scene. He says he didn’t do it,” said attorney Darrell Paster, who described Price as unemployed and separated from his wife and family.
Rosenbaum, 29, was chased and fatally stabbed by a gang of 10 to 15 blacks during the first of four nights of rioting in the Brooklyn neighborhood. The violence began after a 7-year-old black boy was accidentally struck and killed by a motorcade carrying the leader of the Lubavitch Hasidic sect.
Only one suspect was ever arrested in the slaying — Lemrick Nelson Jr., 16, found with a bloody knife in his pocket; he was acquitted of murder in 1992. But the Justice Department brought federal civil rights charges against Nelson in 1994, and he goes to trial Oct. 7.
