A Staten Island teenager was arrested Saturday for yelling racial slurs while robbing a 15-year-old Mexican boy at knifepoint, the latest in a surge of bias attacks in the borough, cops said.
Yashua Plair, who is black, split from a group of young men about 8 p.m. last Wednesday on N. Burgher Ave. in West Brighton and approached the victim, who was standing on the corner with two young black men, cops said.
Plair, 17, pulled out a blade and demanded the boy's iPod and shouted out racial slurs, police said.
The two friends were not robbed.
A witness recognized the young bandit and cops tracked Plair down Thursday night, sources said.
After he was fingered in a series of lineups, police charged the teen with robbery and menacing - both as a hate crime, sources said.
There have been at least 12 bias attacks in the borough since April, most of them occurring in nearby Port Richmond.
In the wake of those attacks, Archbishop Timothy Dolan will attend Mass today at St. Mary's of the Assumption Church in Port Richmond.
NY Daily News
