Ahmed Khalifa, a 17-year-old Muslim teen, recently assisted Brooklyn police in the arrest of Rayvon Jones, a man who assaulted a 56-year-old woman. Khalifa was on the southbound Q-train when he saw Jones slap a Jewish Orthodox woman across the face. The strike was so hard that it broke the woman’s glasses and caused her face to bleed. The woman fell unconscious and Jones left the train at the next subway stop. “For some reason, he just decided to hit her. It was a very hard slap, I could almost feel it,” Khalifa said. “He was a very big, big guy.” Other Q-train passengers helped the injured woman while Khalifa told the conductor to call for help while he chased Jones. Khalifa lost sight of Jones and, after failing to catch the attention of a police cruiser, he flagged down another Orthodox passerby who offered to help. The two found Jones at a bus stop and called the police with the assailant’s location. Police captured Jones as he boarded the bus. Though he was screaming violent threats and kicking the doors of the bus, Jones was arrested. Assemblyman Dov Hikind honored Khalifa with a legislative citation and a laptop in the week following the attack. “Some people are like ‘she’s Jewish, why did you help her,’” said Khalifa. “I’m like ‘everyone is equal.’ I treat everyone the same way.”
