Man charged in glass bottle attack on Jewish students in Pittsburgh, now charged with earlier attack

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A man accused of attacking two Jewish students with a glass bottle on the University of Pittsburgh campus is now accused of throwing a bottle at two people associated with another university the day before.

Jarrett Buba, 52, was previously charged with aggravated assault in connection with the attack on the students who were walking near Pitt's Cathedral of Learning on August 30.

A day earlier, two people from Carnegie Mellon University's community told university police that a man had thrown a glass bottle at them in the Oakland neighborhood. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports that a police report did not specify why the two people were attacked. The bottle hit a vehicle and neither of them was injured, officials said.

Buba also faces charges of assault, reckless endangerment, resisting arrest and harassment in connection with the alleged attack at the University of Pittsburgh. Prosecutors allege he sat across a table from the students, then ran across the street and hit them from behind with the bottle.

The students, who were wearing the traditional Jewish head covering, the kippah, were treated at the scene, university police said. One had cuts to his face and the other was bleeding from cuts to his neck, which police said may have been caused by the bottle breaking.

Buba, who police said had no known connection to the school, was wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional checkered headscarf worn in the Middle East and increasingly displayed as a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The university called it a “horrific incident” and said those responsible were in contact with the Hillel University Center and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. Agents from the FBI's Pittsburgh field office were also sent to the scene to investigate the possibility of a hate crime, police said.

Carnegie Mellon University officials obtained a photo of Buba's arrest and were able to identify him as the man in the Aug. 29 video. Charges of attempted aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and harassment were subsequently filed Thursday, authorities said in a criminal complaint.

In none of the cases is a lawyer listed for the suspect in court records, nor could his phone number be found.

The incident at the University of Pittsburgh occurred at the end of the first full week of classes of the fall semester and several months after spring protests on campus against the war in Gaza, one of which took place in front of the Cathedral of Learning.