NYC Postal Worker Arrested For Threatening, Spitting On Muslim Woman

In this photo made Aug. 18, 2011, people pass below a New York Police security camera, upper left, situated above a mosque on Fulton St., in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in New York. After the atta... In this photo made Aug. 18, 2011, people pass below a New York Police security camera, upper left, situated above a mosque on Fulton St., in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in New York. After the attacks of Sept. 11, the New York Police Department has dispatched teams of undercover officers into minority neighborhoods and used informants to monitor sermons at mosques, even when there?s no evidence of wrongdoing. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) MORE LESS

NEW YORK (AP) — A postal worker arrested on hate crime charges had bumped into and spit on a Muslim woman before following her into a deli and threatening to burn down her place of worship, New York City police said.

Dainton Coley, 34, was still wearing his Postal Service uniform when he was led out of a police precinct in handcuffs Tuesday night. He held his head down and said nothing as officers escorted him to a waiting police car.

Police said he approached two women who were wearing hijabs on a sidewalk in Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood around 8 p.m. Friday.

Coley bumped into a 30-year-old woman who was pushing her infant in a stroller before he began shouting racial epithets and spit on her, police said. The two women ran off, but Coley chased them and followed them into a deli on the same block, police said. Coley then followed them around the store, screaming obscenities, and told the woman he was going to burn down her place of worship, authorities said.

Coley was awaiting arraignment late Tuesday on charges of aggravated harassment based on race or religion, menacing as a hate crime and child endangerment. It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney who could comment on the accusations. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the charges.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  1. Avatar for imkmu3 imkmu3 says:

    Just another person practicing American exceptionalism.

  2. Another Trump supporter goes Postal literally.

  3. From the incomparable Betty Bowers:

    “Religious Freedom isn’t about stopping persecution, but being the one who does it!”

  4. Is this the new ‘going postal’?

  5. And we’re paying his salary.

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