Source: X screenshot
A white man shown on a viral video brutally punching a reported Black woman in the face on a New York City street during a Pride Month celebration over the weekend has purportedly been identified as a managing director and partner who leads the business services franchise at an investment bank.
The video footage reportedly recorded on Saturday in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn was posted on social media and quoted a post from Moelis & Company, the investment firm where the man shown in the video allegedly works.
The woman reportedly suffered a broken nose because of the attack.
Moelis & Company posted early Sunday morning that it “celebrates Pride Month, the extraordinary contributions of the LGBTQ+ community, and our commitment to fostering an inclusive workplace for all.”
The post on X, formerly Twitter, showing the violence responded to Moelis & Company’s post asking: “So why did your managing director Jonathan Kaye punch a black woman at Brooklyn Pride yesterday?”
Neither the identity nor the race of the victim was immediately confirmed.
The footage begins abruptly and shows a man punching an unidentified woman in the face, knocking her to the ground, before storming off. While some onlookers could be heard calling the man names, notably, no one tried to stop him as he walked away freely after having committed assault.
The man is shown on video muttering something unintelligibly that suggests he was blaming the woman for his own violent actions.
The context of the footage is unclear. It is racist? Is it homophobic? Is it both? Neither? The unanswered questions have mounted in the wake of the video going viral.
However, one thing is seemingly clear, according to social media sleuths: Jonathan Kaye is the man initiating the violence.
The video footage is graphic in nature and should be viewed with discretion.
Multiple reports have identified the man on video as being Kaye, who “leads the global Business Services franchise” at Moelis & Company, according to the investment firm’s website.
The photo of Kaye on Moelis & Company’s website resembles the man shown in the video.
Moelis & Company posted on X hours after its Pride message that it was investigating and seemingly confirmed the allegations that Kaye was the man in the video.
“We have become aware that one of our employees was involved in a serious incident in Brooklyn on June 8,” Moelis & Company posted on Sunday evening. “We take this matter very seriously and are conducting an investigation.”
As of Monday morning, there were no reports of Kaye being arrested and charged for the brutal assault.
Bloomberg reported that it contacted Kaye, who declined to comment.
The New York Post referred to Kaye as a “millionaire banker” who “once boasted the importance of having ’empathy’ and an ‘understanding’ of others.
In the wake of the brutal footage going viral, a podcast interview the Wall Street executive gave last year quickly resurfaced in which he preached about mentoring junior bankers and the keys to success.
“You should learn the hard skills as fast as you can, but in the end it’s really the skills of grit and resilience, learning how to listen, understanding what is motivating other people, and empathy — those are the indispensable skills that separate you from a calculator,” he told the LSE Focal Point Podcast.
Elsewhere in the wide-ranging interview, Kaye spoke about his “rough” start in the industry and how “Wall Street could be a merciless place.”
“I learned some of the basic concepts that probably seem obvious, but when you’re in your 20s you kind of have to learn them all from scratch,” he said.
“Those are things like doing what you say you’re going to do, being consistent, carefully managing your reputation, carefully managing difficult people, and staying away from toxic people.
This is America.
SEE ALSO:
White Man Angry Over Yard Work Accused Of Pulling Gun On Black Dad, Toddler Son
The post Who Is Jonathan Kaye? White Man Who Punched ‘Black Woman’ At NYC Pride Event Is Reportedly Identified appeared first on NewsOne.
Who Is Jonathan Kaye? White Man Who Punched ‘Black Woman’ At NYC Pride Event Is Reportedly Identified was originally published on newsone.com
