A registered Level 3 sex offender hunted a 24-year-old Jewish yeshiva student through the streets of Crown Heights in the dead of night, waving a knife and screaming Nazi slurs before the terrified young man bolted into his house.
Devin Best, 48, of the Bronx, approached the victim near Park Place and Brooklyn Avenue around 2:50 a.m. Wednesday, cops said. He started cursing and threatening the student, who was wearing a yarmulke and tallit. When the young man ran, Best chased him with a blade.
Security footage released by Crown Heights Shmira shows the student sprinting up the stoop of a private home as the attacker closes in. Once the door slammed shut, Best stood outside pointing the knife and yelling, “Now I know where you live! That’s what I wanted! Heil f–kin’ Hitler!”He also slashed the tires of bicycles parked outside before taking off.
The victim was not injured.
Best, already listed as New York’s highest-risk category of sex offender, has a rap sheet that includes a 1998 rape arrest involving a 12-year-old girl, plus prior busts for gun possession and assault, law-enforcement sources said.
Shmira volunteers and officers from the 77th Precinct tracked him after he jumped fences through private yards. He was taken into custody without further incident. The knife was not recovered.
He’s charged with aggravated harassment as a hate crime and menacing. The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating.
The same night, a 66-year-old rabbi was beaten in a separate attack in nearby Boro Park.
Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso called both incidents “horrific antisemitic acts” and said Brooklyn “must be safe for all.”
Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, who shared the Crown Heights video, noted that these attacks often spike when public rhetoric against Jews turns especially aggressive. His own teenager was afraid to walk outside that night.
NYPD data shows anti-Jewish hate crimes already make up more than half of all confirmed bias incidents in the city this year. Crown Heights residents say they are used to extra vigilance, especially during the holiday season around Chabad headquarters.
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