LEARN AND GROW WITH
HEBREW LANGUAGE
ACADEMY!
From personalized math and
English, to learning a new language,
we provide your child with a wellrounded
academic experience that
NEWS CLUB Photo by Kevin Duggan
MINI NEWSROOM: Club founder Suzy Ojalvo, back center, assistant teacher Susan Young,
back left, and the young reporters from PS 236 at their weekly meeting on Jan 30.
his notes while his teammate Frida
typed up the piece. Frida cited her
love of putting stories together and
newsrooms’ fast paces as two reasons
why she hopes to become a full-fl edged
journalist in the future.
“I hope to become something of a
writer in the future, maybe work for
a newspaper,” she said. “I like writing
because in writing I can take my emotions
on it and do whatever I want with
it. I also like the action.”
Ojalvo starts the club each year by
giving the students a choice of stories
to cover at its inaugural meeting, but
the kids are also free to pitch ideas,
she said. For example, one fi fth-grader
HATE CRIME
will set them on a path to success. targeted simply because they were
Apply for K–6 at
HebrewPublic.org/Apply
Apply by: 4/1 | Lottery date: 4/9
HLA - 2186 Mill Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11234
HLA2 - 1870 Stillwell Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11223
admissions@hebrewpublic.org | 646-916-0055
COURIER L 12 IFE, FEB. 8–14, 2019 M BR B G
Asian. Sheepshead Bay, like all of
Brooklyn, celebrates its diversity and
will not tolerate vicious, hate-fi lled
attacks in its community,” Gonzalez
said.
Martunovich, whom a Police Department
spokeswoman previously described
as emotionally disturbed, was
arraigned on Feb. 1 before Supreme
Court Justice Danny Chun via video
conference from Bellevue Hospital,
where he is being held in the psych
ward, according to Gonzalez’s spokeswoman
Helen Peterson.
Chun ordered Martunovich be held
without bail, and that he submit to a
psychiatric exam to see whether he is
fi t to stand trial, which will be determined
by the time of his next court
date on March 4, Peterson said.
The defendant on Jan. 15 walked
into the Seaport Buffet on Emmons
Avenue near E. 21st Street armed with
a hammer around 5:11 pm, telling a Latino
employee that he would not harm
him before brutally bludgeoning the
three Asian victims in the head with
the tool, according to Gonzalez. An
eyewitness told this newspaper the
scene was a “ bloodbath. ”
Paramedics rushed the victims —
the restaurant’s 34-year-old chef, Fufai
Pun, his uncle and a co-owner of
the eatery, 50-year-old Tsz Mat Pun,
and its 60-year-old manager, Thang Ng
— to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn,
where doctors immediately pronounced
the younger Pun dead, and
the elder Pun and Ng later died from
their blunt-force injuries on Jan. 18
and 24 respectively, according to prosecutors.
Following his arrest, Martunovich
allegedly told cops that he targeted the
three men because of their race, according
to the district attorney.
Gonzalez’s announcement of the
charges comes a week after pols, activists,
and locals rallied on Jan. 25 outside
the buffet to demand he prosecute
the alleged triple homicide as a hate
crime.
A co-host of the rally claimed Martunovich
watched a fi lm depicting
Asian men abusing women before his
alleged killing spree, which convinced
the suspect that he was a savior.
“He entered the restaurant motivated
by a racial stereotype of gender
relations in my community, with
a goal to massacre, believing himself
to be sort of a savior, the attacker bludgeoned
these restaurant workers while
they were doing their job,” Chinese-
American Councilwoman Margaret
Chin (D–Manhattan) said at the rally.
Peterson, however, could not confi
rm Chin’s claim that the fi lm motivated
the attack.
Continued from cover
pitched his own story on the school’s
new Spanish Club.
“When we fi rst started I asked Ms.
Ojalvo if I could do an article on the
Spanish Club, which started this year,
because I wanted everybody to know
that we have a new club in the school,”
said Michael, a one-year veteran of the
Newspaper Club.
Chronicling the life and times of
their fellow students gives the future
Woodward and Bernsteins something
to look forward to each week, according
to the teacher, who said their excitement
motivates her to keep the club
going.
“I love seeing how excited they feel
about being in it. To us it seems like a
small thing, but to them it’s such a big
deal,” she said.
Continued from cover
link
/Apply
link