Police are searching for a suspect who was caught carving more than two dozen swastikas into fresh cement in Brooklyn, the New York Daily News reported.
The vandalism occurred early Saturday morning in the predominately Jewish neighborhood of Midwood. The surveillance footage showed a dark-haired man etching several of the Nazi symbols in new cement outside of 242 Newkirk Ave. as he held a flashlight in his mouth.
Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind told the Daily News that the owners of the building alerted him and the police about the carvings when they discovered them on Monday.
Hikind shared the surveillance video on his YouTube and Facebook pages.
“What has happened to society that people take any pleasure in spreading hate?” he wrote on the latter. “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 Midwood swastika vandalism is the latest in an outbreak of vandalism seen both around the city and the nation in recent months.
In November, the symbols were drawn on dorm room doors at The New School and on a sidewalk in Crown Heights, which is also a predominately Jewish neighborhood. A few weeks later, anti-Semitic and anti-police graffiti was found at a Queens playground.
The symbols have also been seen drawn on several snow-covered vehicles in Borough Park, Brooklyn, following a storm.
