A Wilton Manors man ripped off a U.S Postal Service worker’s hijab and attacked her late last month, police say. He is now charged with a hate crime.
Kenneth Jerome Pinkney, 47, was arrested on Oct. 24, court records show. He is charged with battery/second or subsequent offense and committing a second-degree felony with prejudice.
The victim, who was unidentified in the probable cause affidavit, was walking up to a home to deliver mail, dressed in a USPS uniform, the affidavit says, when Pinkney rode by on a bicycle and made a shooting gesture at her with his hand.
He then began to call her derogatory names and told her to “go back to her country,” according to the affidavit. Nervous, she tried to laugh the comments off, the affidavit says.
Then, Pinkney approached her. He ripped off her hijab and began to slap and punch her in the face, scratching her and causing her to bleed from the mouth, the affidavit said. When she tried to get back into her USPS truck, he grabbed her leg.
She freed herself, tearing his shirt, then told him she was going to call the police. Pinkney said he was going to call them also.
When a Fort Lauderdale Police officer spoke with Pinkney, he was “unable to provide any details regarding the incident without losing track of his story,” the affidavit said. He was arrested at his home in Wilton Manors.
The assault came two weeks after Israel declared war on Hamas after the massacre on Oct. 7. In the month since, the United States and the rest of the world have seen a surge in Islamophobic and antisemitic hate crimes and incidents, including the murder of a 6-year-old Palestinian boy in Chicago.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has recorded 774 bias incidents and complaints in the Muslim community between Oct. 7 and Oct. 24, the largest increase since December of 2015, when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
Meanwhile, antisemitic incidents have increased to levels described as “historic” by FBI director Christopher Wray. In Parkland last Saturday, officials say, a group of minors rode by a synagogue, shouting threats at congregants.
Pinkney remained in the North Broward Bureau late Tuesday, jail records show. He previously was convicted of felony battery in 1996, according to the affidavit.
