NY police: Schaumburg man a target in baseball player's anti-Semitic attack
A Schaumburg resident was the victim of an alleged hate crime by Delmon Young, an outfielder for the Detroit Tigers, New York City newspapers are reporting.
According to the New York Post, Young was arrested and charged early Friday morning. Police said he launched into a drunken anti-Semitic attack outside of a Manhattan hotel, in which he directed a racial epithet at Jason Shank, 32, and Shank's three friends, before turning his ire on the Schaumburg businessman, pushing him into a hotel wall and tackling him.
"I'm fine," Shank told the Daily Herald via text message on Saturday evening. "Spent the day in Central Park and then went to the Yankees game. I'll be back (in town) tomorrow."
The Post said the fracas began when a beggar wearing a yarmulke and the Star of David asked Shank and his friends - all of whom were in New York for a bachelor party - for money. As Shank and his friends took money out, Young shouted an anti-Semitic remark at the group and attacked Shank. Shank told the Daily Herald via text message that neither he, nor the friends who were with him, are Jewish.
The New York Daily News reports that Shank's friends broke up the fight and that they, along with Shank, ran into the nearby Hilton hotel. Young, 26, chased them, but a hotel guard stopped him and ordered that he prove he was a guest there.
The Daily News says Young was allowed to return to his room, and that a security guard called police.
Young was arrested and charged with aggravated harassment, which investigators have classified as a hate crime, according to the Daily News. He was released on $5,000 bail after his Friday evening arraignment.
Both papers say Young was heavily intoxicated at the time of the attack.
"I sincerely regret what happened last night," Young said in a statement Friday. "I take this matter very seriously and assure everyone that I will do everything I can to improve myself as a person and player."
The Detroit Tigers put Young on the restricted list Saturday and said he would be evaluated under baseball's employee assistance program, according to The Associated Press.
Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski told The Associated Press that he expects Young to return to the lineup if he is cleared by the evaluation, which could happen as soon as Monday. Dombrowski would not say if the Tigers were considering any punishment of their own.
"He's accused of a misdemeanor," Dombrowski said. "If he's cleared to play, he will play."
Shank, meanwhile, was treated for scratches and bleeding on his arm, the Post said.
According to his LinkedIn page, Shank is an international consultant for Trident Worldwide in Missouri and a regional manager for Taggart International, a company with offices in Wood Dale and Missouri. Both companies specialize in importing and exporting.
Young's defense attorney Daniel J. Ollen told The Associated Press that there are different accounts of the fight.
He said there was video - which he hasn't seen - that proves someone in Shank's group said something to Young before the scuffle.
"I do know that he was in a skirmish, I do know that. Beyond that, I don't know anything else," Dombrowski told The Associated Press. "If the allegations are true, they concern me."
This isn't the first time Young has found himself in hot water.
In 2006, he was suspended for 50 games without pay while in the minor leagues after he threw his baseball bat at an umpire who called him out after three strikes, the Daily News said. The umpire was not seriously injured, the Daily News said.