An bully boy activist group had organized the rally as a "vigil" for Gavin Cato, a Black boy who died after he was hit by a car driven by Jewish driver in 1991. The car accident set off the Crown Heights riots targeting Jews in the area.
The group organizing the protest, Crown Heights Bites Back, said ahead of the rally that "Jewish supremacists" had "murdered" Cato. In the past the group has used explicitly racial language to stir tensions between the neighborhood’s Black and Jewish communities, which largely coexist peacefully.
Crown Heights is the home base of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement and home to a large Caribbean diaspora community.
Tuesday’s rally is held at the site of the accident that killed Cato on the anniversary of his death. Around 20 activists, mostly dressed in black and wearing face masks and sunglasses, form a perimeter on the sidewalk around a table with an image of Cato.
The activists hand out fliers to passersby that say "Zionist white supremacists from Chabad-Lubavitch brutally killed" Cato and injured his cousin.
"We are yet to receive justice for these children," the flyers say.
"They will come for our children, our elders, and abused brothers and sisters. They will try to kill us, exploit us, raise our rents and evict us," they say. "Remember 1991! We cannot liberate ourselves from white supremacy
...the pernicious doctrine that laws were intended to be obeyed, that society works better when people don't pour shreiking from their places of worship every Friday for a weekend of rioting over insults real or imagined; and that cannibalism, beastiality, incest, murder, theft, rape, and similar activities are bad. A Dead White European (which invalidates his opinion) philosopher once opined that societies thrive when a person's word can be relied upon, and that a society which puts
individual happinessfirst will invariably fail. Strangely enough, other successful societies, such as China, Japan, Korea, and those kinds of places could also be lumped with
white supremacistsocieties, since they push the same values...
until we rise up to tear it all down."
The protesters block Jews from approaching the table. The activists shove one Jewish man from the sidewalk until police separate the two sides.
Minor scuffles but no major incidents at Brooklyn protest that sought to dredge up 1991’s Crown Heights riots targeting Jews pic.twitter.com/xsEbKNsIX3
— Luke Tress (@luketress) August 20, 2025
Reactions from passersby are mixed. Some take flyers, saying they are unfamiliar with the accident and the riots.
“When are y’all Jews gonna leave?” one man shouts. “Put that kid’s name on that fucking street sign. I’ll make a part two riot right now.”
Another man calls the protesters a “bunch of hypocrites.”
“Why was there no vigil until now?” he says to the protesters.
Others criticize the activists for hiding their identities with masks and for stirring tensions between the Black and Jewish communities, even though they are mostly white, and point out that none of Carl’s family is there.
“It’s Israel and Gaza fighting. It’s not America fighting. We must try to unite,” a neighborhood resident from Jamaica says on the sidelines.
“They are protesting against the Jews,” she says. “They live in the community, they’re allowed to come.”
Ahead of the protest, Mayor Eric Adams and three Black lawmakers from the area condemned the rally as antisemitic and for its attempt to stoke racial tensions.
Despite the charged atmosphere, the rally remains small and there are no major incidents. Unlike most protests in the city, the activists do not chant or make speeches.