NYPD Chief Dermot Shea has announced the department’s Hate Crimes Task Force has detained a suspect in connection with the elaborate Nazi graffiti that “adorned” the Rego Park Elementary School playground last weekend in Queens, New York.
Read: Anti-Semitic Hate at a Queens, NY Schoolyard
The suspect, a 12-year-old male, was not identified to the media due to his age. NYPD spokesperson Detective George Tsourovakas told ABC News he was arrested and charged with aggravated harassment. He was later released to his mother, and is expected to appear in court at a later date to face the charge.
Dozens of chalk-drawn swastikas, a Nazi eagle and anti-Semitic epithets, including the message “Hail (sic) Hitler” and “No Jews Allowed” were discovered last Friday at the P.S. 139 playground, but has since been scrubbed and washed away.
Brooklyn Councilman Chaim Deutsch said in a statement to media, “Yet another act of anti-Semitism in our city brings the total of anti-Semitic hate crimes in our city to nearly 50 since the start of the new year.
“This has gotten completely out of hand. I urge Mayor de Blasio to immediately implement mine and Councilmember Mark Levine’s bills that recently passed in the City Council, which would require educational outreach to teach about the impact of hate, bias, and anti-Semitism.”
