- The young woman screamed incoherently as she was led away by police
- She has since been released without bail and is back on the streets
- The incident is the latest in a long and growing list of confrontations between people who tear down hostage posters and those who interrogate them
A young woman dressed all in black, cutting down posters of Israeli hostages in Brooklyn, threatened a Jewish security volunteer and pepper-sprayed him after he confronted her.
Twenty-year-old Melissa Ugur was reportedly seen in Midwood on Saturday around 2:30 p.m. with a knife to snap off kites when she was confronted by a Shmira Public Safety Officer.
Shmira is a 24-hour non-profit volunteer safety, search and rescue team. The organization is primarily funded and staffed by Jews, but volunteers strive to ensure the safety of every member of a community, regardless of their religious beliefs.
When confronted, Ugur began shouting, “I’ll cut you!” to the man who asked her why she was taking down the posters.
She then pepper-sprayed the 48-year-old man, authorities said.
A still from the video of Melissa Ugur being led away by police after pepper spraying a volunteer security guard in Midwood, Brooklyn
The knife found at the scene that Ugur allegedly used to cut down posters of hostages
As police led Ugur to the back of a police car, she shouted, “They’re kidnapping and I pepper-sprayed him!”
A video obtained by the New York Post partially captured the bizarre incident on camera.
Ugur, who lives in Midwood, was charged with assault, menacing and criminal possession of a weapon.
She was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Sunday and released without bail.
Her next appearance is scheduled for January 18.
The incident in Midwood is the latest in a growing list of confrontations between individuals who take down posters of the missing hostages and those who question their hostile actions.
As the war in the region continues, people are seen destroying posters throughout Manhattan and in various parts of Brooklyn and Queens.
A few days ago, a man on the Upper East Side sparked outrage by also tearing down posters and asking, “Where are the Palestinians?”
A composite image from Shmira’s social media documenting the scene of the crime and the tools Ugur used, including her pepper spray (top left)
Photos of kidnapped Israelis hang in major cities, many of which have been demolished
In a more recent incident in Brooklyn, a Jewish woman approached a couple who were tearing down posters in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
“These are American citizens,” the Jewish woman shouted at the couple, who said nothing.
Finally the man laughed and said, “We don’t consent to you recording us.”
Then they walked away.
On October 17, two young women were caught tearing down posters in Tisch Hall at NYU.
They cleared a wall where students had plastered the faces of some of the hundreds of hostages captured by Hamas and fled with the posters in their arms.
In a separate incident in Brooklyn, a woman named Sarah Daoud was seen scraping off the remainder of a hostage poster while loudly saying the word “calba,” the Arabic word for dog.
To the person answering her, she turns around and says, “F*** you. F*** you. And burn in hell.’