scarcity. In 1990, in response to a $1.8 billion budget
deficit, Mayor Dinkins slashed social services, laid
off over 25,000 city workers, and raised taxes enor-
mously.
In tough times, any perceived preferential treat-
ment of an ethnic group will be resented, and many
African Americans thought that the Lubavitch were
getting preferential treatment. One particularly dif-
ficult point was the police protection that accompa-
nied the Lubavitch leader, Menachem Schneerson,
when he traveled in the city. To the Lubavitch, pro-
tection was justified because Schneerson had been
the subject of death threats.
As Schneerson’s entourage sped through Crown
Heights on the night of August 19, it was followed by
a station wagon driven by Yosef Lifsh. He was not
part of the motorcade but was following to help pro-
vide security. Trying to cross a major intersection,
Lifsh struck another car, lost control, and hit Gavin
Cato and his cousin Angela. The mood of the crowd
that gathered was angry, and Lifsh was beaten. Po-
lice officers on the scene asked the first ambulance
to arrive, a Jewish volunteer ambulance, to take Lifsh
away quickly. The intent was to protect Lifsh, but the
decision delayed care for Gavin and Angela Cato.Retaliation Without this shortsighted action, there
probably would have been no riot. The perception
seized upon by the crowd was that black children lay
critically injured while Jewish adults received police
protection and medical help. Although city ambu-
lances arrived soon afterward, Gavin Cato died be-
fore he reached the hospital. When this news hit the
street, hotheads in the crowd began inciting vio-
lence against any Jew that could be found. Several
were terrorized, attacked, and beaten.
A few blocks away and a couple hours later, Yankel
Rosenbaum, a Jewish graduate student from Austra-
lia, was attacked by a crowd of young black men, one
of whom stabbed him several times. The police soon
found sixteen-year-old Lemrick Nelson hiding be-
hind a bush; he had Rosenbaum’s blood on his pants232 Crown Heights riot The Nineties in America
Police walk past a police car that was overturned by rioters on August 21, 1991, in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New
York.(AP/Wide World Photos)