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Video: Man Carves Dozens Of Swastikas Into Midwood Sidewalk
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Jul 10, 2017
Modified Jul 10, 2017
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By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Jul 10, 2017
Modified Jul 10, 2017
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Police are searching for a man who was caught on video carving dozens of swastikas into a freshly paved sidewalk in the historically Jewish neighborhood of Midwood, Brooklyn.
Surveillance footage captured over the weekend shows the man vandalizing the ground at 242 Newkirk Avenue, near Ocean Parkway, a police spokesperson said. Property owners discovered the swastikas on Monday and quickly alerted police within the 70th precinct, the Daily News reports.
A police spokesperson classified the incident as "criminal mischief," and could not say whether the NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force had gotten involved.
The video was also uploaded to YouTube by Brooklyn Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind on Monday.
"What has happened to society that people take any pleasure in spreading hate?" Hikind wrote in an email to Gothamist. "Imagine the reaction of Holocaust survivors and their descendants who live in this community when they come across these symbols of hate?"
"This was a purposeful determination to hurt people," the assemblyman continued. "But the surprise will be on the vandal who brought this hate crime to this neighborhood. He was caught clearly on video."
The site of the vandalism is just a few blocks away from several Jewish institutions, including the Ocean Parkway Jewish Center and the ultra-Orthodox Chaad Lubavitch of Kensington. The East Midwood Jewish Center, also nearby, was one of several synagogues to receive anti-semitic threats back in March.
"Oy vey, we coming to spray your synagogue with pig's blood, the goyim," one voicemail threatened. "That's right you kikes, take a hike."
"This is a moment in time—a moment in history where forces of hate have been unleashed," Mayor de Blasio said at the time. "And it is exceedingly unsettling to people who are the victims of that hate, who have that hate directed against them."
Tagged
anti semitism
dov hikind
midwood
swastika
Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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