Rabbi suspends organizing armed patrols

NEW YORK -- A right-wing rabbi suspended plans Sunday to organize armed civilian patrols in heavily Jewish neighborhoods that were considered terror targets after angry residents and lawmakers complained.

"The response was so overwhelmingly negative, but God forbid anything should happen and then I'll have to say, 'I told you so,"' said the rabbi, Yakove Lloyd. "This is not forever; it may be just for a week or so."

Lloyd, president of the right-wing Jewish Defense Group, had called a press conference to explain details on his armed patrols with groups carrying shotguns, baseball bats, pipes, cellular phones and walkie-talkies. The patrols had been scheduled to begin Sunday night in Borough Park and Flatbush.

He promised a crowd of 100 supporters but showed up alone.

"You are here to take advantage of our community. Go back home. We will fight against you," state Assemblyman Dov Hikind said Sunday. His district includes Borough Park, one of the Brooklyn neighborhoods that would be patrolled by the armed groups. Lloyd is from Queens.

Lloyd was shouted at by Hikind, Brooklyn Councilman Simcha Felder and a few dozen members of the shomrin, a community group that patrols neighborhoods with cellular phones.

"When you get people like Lloyd in the community ... it gives us all a bad name," said Abe Weinreb, a shomrin member.

Lloyd said the armed patrols were conceived in response to comments that fugitive Abdul Rahman Yasin made during an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" on June 2.

"We're not here to hurt anybody," he said Sunday. "I ... heard Yasin say the original targets were Jews in Brooklyn, so I was concerned and I was nervous for my people."

Yasin, who is sought by the FBI in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, said from Iraq that he and his accomplices originally targeted Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. They later decided to attack the twin towers because they believed most occupants were Jewish, he said.