Memphis police arrested a 17-year-old male last week in connection to the murder of Israeli citizen Aviv Broek in late November, the police confirmed on X/Twitter last Thursday.
Police said the 17-year-old was charged with “First Degree Murder in Perpetration of a Robbery and Especially Aggravated Robbery.”
A 17-year-old juvenile was charged with First Degree Murder in Perpetration of a Robbery and Especially Aggravated Robbery. https://t.co/2W8X5zRluM pic.twitter.com/dSdazKkfzc
— Memphis Police Dept (@MEM_PoliceDept) November 28, 2024
“His name was not released due to his age,” a police spokesperson told the Jewish News Syndicate.
Aviv Broek, a 21-year-old Israeli national with a British parent, was working as a locksmith in the area. On the morning of November 22, he responded to a client call on Hernando Road – it was while responding to the call that he was murdered.
Broek, who was reportedly born and raised in Rehovot, was robbed of his work equipment and his body was discovered outside his car by a friend who came to look for him, the New York Post reported.
Broek was buried in Israel after a GoFundMe campaign supported the costs of returning his body.
Why was Aviv Broek murdered?
Friends and family of Broek have also begun campaigning the police to see his murder treated as an anti-Jewish hate crime, the Jewish Chronicle reported.
“We are shocked and saddened at the murder of Aviv while he was in the United States. The police have so far provided us very little information we would like to have a civil rights investigation,” Broek’s family said in a statement.
“We have all heard calls to globalize the intifada, and now we ask, has this intifada come to Tennessee in America? Are Zionists safe in America?”
Broek had reportedly moved to America after his friend was murdered at the Nova Music Festival on October 7 by Hamas.
“We are foreigners, Jews in a foreign land, and we need answers and require assistance to demand justice for our son,” said the family, who said that “Jews are being hunted worldwide” in 2024.
The public learned of Broek’s death after the news broke that Rabbi Zvi Kogan was murdered in an antisemitic terror attack in the United Arab Emirates. The police initially said they had not ruled out a terror motive in Broek’s murder, it was previously reported.
This article was originally published at www.jpost.com
