Two Jdl Members Charge Police Beat Them; Kahane, Eight Others Arrested After Melee

Two members of the Jewish Defense League charged today that two police officers beat them and used anti-Semitic language while transporting them to police headquarters after a demonstration yesterday evening at the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations. The JDL members, Morris Schewartz and Zev Fisher, said at a press conference today at JDL headquarters that the policemen beat them with their fists, clubs and helmets and that one of them shouted: “Hitler didn’t kill enough of you.” Schwartz and Fischer identified the officers as Ptl. Johnson (Badge 27359) and Ptl. Midwean (Badge 19306) of the Tactical Patrol Force (TPF). They said Midwean made the statement about Hitler. They added that when Johnson and Midwean took them into the stationhouse, the commanding officer there looked at their bloodied faces and said: “Not bad.” A TPF spokesman could not be reached this afternoon for comment on the JDL charges. But Capt. Walter Rickard of the police precinct where those arrested were taken, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “If Kahane didn’t show it would have been a very peaceful thing. It was going beautifully until Meir Kahane came. The condition was so bad we had to bring two more units in. Two policemen were injured. Rabbi Kahane’s actions yesterday, Richard said, were “a disgrace.”

JDL national chairman Rabbi Meir Kahane, told newsmen today that relations between his organization and the police were generally good but that the TPF was maintaining a campaign of physical and verbal assault against minority groups. “If the Mayor (John V. Lindsay) can’t control his TPF, someone else will have to,” Rabbi Kahane declared, announcing that JDL members will hereafter carry walking sticks to be used in self-defense against TPF belligerency. He added that formal charges against the two patrolmen will be filed tomorrow. Rabbi Kahane and eight other persons were arrested at last night’s demonstration, staged in protest against the arrests and imprisonment of Iraqi Jews. The JDL leader was charged with second-degree riot, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and must appear in Criminal Court May 17. The same charges were filed against five others, who are to appear in court Friday along with Zalman Lew, 17 and Aaron Hershkowitz (not the same person as JDL member Avrum Hershkovitz) charged with felonious assault. The demonstration, in which eggs were thrown at the Iraqi Mission and at policemen and police barriers were overturned, was sponsored by the Ad Hoc Committee for Soviet Jewry, comprised of the JDL, the Student Activists for Soviet Jewry and Betar. Rabbi Kahane repeated to the JTA correspondent that “If one Jew is hanged (in Iraq), Iraqi diplomats will hang in New York City.”