A vandal scrawled a swastika and a racial epithet on a Brooklyn brownstone — just four days after a mass murder at a Pittsburgh synagogue, police said Wednesday.
Investigators are looking for the person who drew the Nazi symbol, as well as the word “n—-r” on the stairs of a Garden Place home in Brooklyn Heights, police said.
The epithets were discovered around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, though it wasn’t immediately clear who reported the incident.
“There is no tolerance for hate crimes in New York City. We have the best hate-crimes unit in the nation, quite frankly, and each and every crime that gets reported is fully investigated,” NYPD Police Commissioner James O’Neill said Wednesday at an unrelated press conference.
The drawings are being investigated as potential hate crimes, noted Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea, who noted there were “several incidents of Swastikas being drawn” in the police precinct that encompasses the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood.
“What we’ve seen in the last month is an increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes, particularly Swastikas on buildings in parts of the city,” Shea said. “Anti-Semitic hate crimes make up about half of all of the hate crimes that we see in New York City.”
Swastikas had previously been drawn on residences along the same block, but were not reported to police, law enforcement sources said.
“You have to think, what possesses someone to do this? Is it just pure hate?” wondered Elyse Douglas, 62, who has lived on the street for four years. “This is a nice little community, and to have something like this happen is terrible.”
Douglas called the neighborhood “Halloween Central,” noting that come nightfall Wednesday, the street will be swarming with young trick-or-treaters.
Additional reporting by Stephanie Pagones