Deep Reads: Ripples of hate
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 February 2024
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One month into the Israel-Gaza war, Ashish Prashar put on a kaffiyeh and took his 18-month-old son to a playground near their home in Brooklyn, where a woman he’d never seen before began yelling at him. As Prashar took out his phone and began filming, the woman continued to yell, threw her phone at him, and then threw a coffee cup holding a hot beverage. It was a chance encounter that led to spiraling repercussions: a police investigation, hate crime charges, an angry mob on the internet, a wrongly identified assailant, and a father left with questions about justice, mercy and what anger in such fraught times can turn into.
This story is part of our Deep Reads series, which showcases narrative journalism at The Washington Post. It was written and read by Ruby Cramer. Audio production and original composition by Bishop Sand.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Ruby Kramer, National Enterprise reporter at the Washington Post. |
| 0:05.0 | I wrote this story as part of our Deep Reed series, which showcases narrative journalism here at the post. |
| 0:11.0 | So I was out walking my dog in Brooklyn one day and I see these |
| 0:15.9 | posters on the street. They're bright red and they say in big capital lettering |
| 0:20.4 | hate crime and they're referencing something that happened at a |
| 0:23.4 | playground with a father and his 18-month-old son. So I reached out to the father and |
| 0:28.3 | asked him what happened. The story I ended up writing is about a man who took his son to a playground. |
| 0:36.0 | What happened there was related to the war in Israel and Gaza, which had been going on for |
| 0:40.4 | about a month. |
| 0:42.1 | It was a brief encounter for this father, but it had consequences for everyone involved, and the father at the center of it all was left with questions about what justice should look like. |
| 0:52.0 | A note to listeners, you'll be hearing from a video that was |
| 0:55.9 | shown to hate crime investigators. You'll also hear some threatening voicemails. |
| 1:01.6 | Okay, here's my story. There was a woman walking toward him, but he didn't recognize her. |
| 1:08.4 | They were at a basketball court on a Tuesday morning in Brooklyn, just after 10 a.m. |
| 1:14.3 | Two strangers at a playground. |
| 1:21.5 | The sun was out, it was warm. A sheesh Pishar, 40, had taken off his jacket and laid it on the ground. |
| 1:27.2 | He watched his son, who was 18 months old, standing near the three-point line, happy, babbling, fascinated by an older boy playing basketball. Maybe the boy was this woman's son, Ash thought, and now she was coming closer and she began to speak. |
| 1:40.0 | The tone of her voice surprised him. It was firm and direct. |
| 1:45.0 | Two weeks from now, in a courtroom, a prosecutor would summarize what Ash said he heard. |
| 1:51.0 | You support Hamas. They kill babies. Your babies should die. You're a terrorist. |
| 1:57.0 | That morning, it was one month into the Israel-Gazah War and as the woman came closer |
| 2:06.2 | Ash asked himself what was happening. He scanned the playground and now the facts of the |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Washington Post, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Washington Post and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.