Two youngsters have been arrested Thursday after dozens of swastikas have been painted on a playground in a predominantly Jewish area of Brooklyn, New York, this week, the New York Police Department stated.
The 15-year-olds each face aggravated harassment prices, with one of the teens additionally dealing with a cost of felony mischief as a hate crime, the NYPD stated.
Gov. Kathy Hochul on X known as the vandalism “a depraved act of antisemitism,” which comes throughout an prolonged interval of such threats to town’s Jewish group.
Officers responded on Monday to a name at Gravesend Park in the southwest Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park, the place they discovered about 16 swastikas painted in pink on slides, partitions and the bottom.
Then on Wednesday, police responded to a different name and located about 57 swastikas drawn on the identical playground in pink, blue and yellow. “Adolf Hitler” was additionally scrawled in paint.
The NYPD’s hate crimes activity pressure is investigating each incidents.
The Brooklyn Community Board 12, which represents the area, posted photographs of the vandalism on X.
The vandalism comes amid a common rise in antisemitic incidents over the past few years, notably because the Israel-Hamas battle started in October 2023. There have been 576 hate crime incidents in New York City final yr, with about 330 concentrating on Jews, according to NYPD data.
The Borough Park neighborhood is dwelling to about 46,000 Jewish adults and 50,000 Jewish kids, and about 45% of households there embody a Jewish particular person, in response to a 2023 study from the nonprofit UJA-Federation of New York.
New York political officers condemned the vandalism and pledged an investigation in a sequence of statements.
“I am sickened by this antisemitic vandalism in Borough Park,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani stated in a press release. “Antisemitism has no place in our metropolis, and I stand shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish New Yorkers who have been focused.
“My administration is working closely with the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force as well as our Parks Department, and those responsible will be investigated and held accountable.”
Hochul similarly said she directed the state’s Hate Crimes Task Force to supply help to the NYPD.
“A depraved act of antisemitism. In a children’s playground where our kids should feel safe and have fun. There is no excuse. There is zero tolerance,” she wrote.