Twenty-five years ago this Friday, the death of a seven-year-old boy set in motion one of the ugliest episodes in the city’s recent history - three days of violence that featured clashes between Brooklyn’s Jewish and black communities. NY1 is revisiting the Crown Heights riots this week, beginning with Bobby Cuza’s look back at how events on the ground unfolded.

It started with a car crash. A Mercury Grand Marquis station wagon, part of a motorcade carrying the grand rebbe of the Lubavitch Hasidic Jewish group, veered onto the sidewalk, striking two black children playing with their bicycles. Seven-year-old Gavin Cato was killed; his cousin, Angela Cato, was severely injured.

An angry crowd formed; rumors spread that a volunteer Jewish ambulance had attended to the car’s driver, ignoring the black children.

Chaos ensued; a few hours later, a violent mob beat and stabbed Hasidic scholar Yankel Rosenbaum.

“We had the loss of one life, injury to at least two other people, there should be no more hurt. That’s what I’m concerned about,” Mayor Dinkins said.

Rosenbaum died a short while later, and the unrest had only begun.

By the time the riots ended three days later, there’d been nearly 200 injuries—many of them police--plus extensive property damage.

Even the mayor himself was not immune.

“I went to see the Cato family. And there were those in the crowd who were throwing bottles. Two bottles landed very close to me. And I mean very close. And in whose interest is that?” Dinkins said on August 21, 1991.

Repercussions of the riots were long lasting. When Lemrick Nelson Jr. was acquitted of criminal charges in Rosenbaum’s death, there was strong backlash from the Jewish community, led by the victim’s brother Norman Rosenbaum.

“His blood is on their hands. And I hope they never, ever, ever forget the name Yankel Rosenbaum,” he said. “My feelings today are probably as strong as they ever were.”

Twenty-five years later, he still blames the inaction of Dinkins and city officials for his brother’s death.

 “The Crown Heights riots, the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum, were completely avoidable,” Norman Rosenbaum said.

The political fallout largely doomed Dinkins’ career; a damaging 1993 state report helped sink his re-election bid that fall.