Anti-Muslim Hate Crime Is a Real New York-y SceneS

An imam from Queens was riding the subway this week when he was allegedly attacked by racist idiots hurling anti-Muslim slurs. Just another day on the downtown A train, amirite? New York is full of hate crimes.

"What are you, a camel jockey?" Albert Melendez said as he grabbed Rod Peterson and hit him in the face, prosecutors charged, adding that Melendez also shouted, "I don't like Muslims."

This scary bias attack has everything that makes New York City special: a brazen violent asshole on the subway (Albert Melendez, pictured), an outdated slur that sounds like something out of a 1940s movie, and then the asshole in question claiming (through his attorney) that he only punched the guy because he bumped him. The other man charged in the case is an MTA officer from Staten Island, and you can insert your own two jokes into that classic setup.

The men also got hit with a robbery charge for "tearing off [the imam's] Muslim hat and throwing it on the tracks." And the next morning everyone could stare down at the kufi on the tracks of the Canal Street station, speculate about how the heck it got there, and marvel at the variety of New York's Eight Million Stories, before being punched by a fellow passenger who's trying to get to work while you're daydreaming, fuckhead.

[NYDN. Photo: AP]