The quiet, leafy Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park has again been hit with hateful graffiti, as a second set of swastikas were discovered spray-painted there on Sunday night.
This is the second incident of anti-Semitic graffiti in the same neighborhood in the past week.
One of the swastikas was found spray-painted on a van parked on East 2nd Street in front of a shul, or Jewish house of worship.
Metro spoke with Borough Park resident Tierra McKeithan, who owns the defaced van.
McKeithan said she was concerned her neighbors would think she was the one who scrawled the graffiti.
“I am afraid my neighbors may think bad of us. We are the only black family on E 3rd St. and the police knocked on my door thinking we did it,” she said yesterday.
She said she and her family have been living in the Borough Park neighborhood for ten years.
The other swastika could be seen on a sign on East 2nd Street between Ditmas Avenue and Avenue F.
Six other locations in the same Brooklyn neighborhood were also hit with spray-painted swastikas on Friday. One of the buildings was a synagogue.
No arrests have been made in any of the incidents.
“This is becoming a problem for the whole neighborhood and it is wrong,” said Johnny P., a barber on Ditmas Avenue. “This is about justice and it is not right.”
The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the graffiti, but do not yet know if the two incidents are related.
“We are very upset that this happened,” Yaslod Hoffman, a student visiting from Montréal, told Metro today. “This is a great neighborhood. We try to get along with everyone. This neighborhood is mixed — Jewish, Spanish, black and Muslim.”
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer urged anyone with information about either crime to contact the NYPD.
“It is not enough simply to deplore them,” Stringer said about the graffiti attackers. “We must never forget our city was built on the concept of diversity, and every time a crime like this takes place, we must speak out affirmatively in support of our proud heritage.”
