MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A South Florida man was arrested after he allegedly knocked the yarmulke off a teenager.
It happened on May 5 outside a Synagogue in northeast Miami-Dade.
The synagogue school security guard saw it happened.
According to police, two teens ages 16 and 17 were walking on the sidewalk when a man walking the other way stopped.
“What I seen happen, he assaulted the kid,” said the security guard. “He swiped hand across his head and knocked off his kippah.”
Assault is what he called it, knocking the yarmulke off the boy’s head, but the charges against 24-year old Jose Garrido are not assault nor battery.
Authorities charged him under a law that increases penalties for vandalism or harassment that target religion or ethnicity.
Garrido walked away after the incident, but came back soon after, and that’s when the security guard confronted him.
“I told him to take everything out of his hands, empty his pockets, pick up your shirt spin around so I can see he didn’t have no weapons on him,” said the guard.
He told Garrido not to come back and provided deputies with a photo that helped ID him.
Garrido was arrested at his home two days later.
According to his arrest report, Garrido confessed to knowing that a yarmulke is a religious head covering, but there was nothing in the report indicating what his motive or intentions were for knocking it off.
