2 arrested for defacing NYC playground used by Jews with dozens of swastikas

NEW YORK — The NYPD on Thursday arrested two teenage suspects for scrawling dozens of swastikas on a playground in a Jewish area of Brooklyn.

Both suspects were 15-year-old boys, a police spokesperson said.

One was charged with aggravated harassment and criminal mischief as a hate crime, and the other was charged with 25 counts of aggravated harassment.

The swastikas turned up at the park two days in a row. The NYPD said 16 swastikas were found at the park on Tuesday, and another 57 on Wednesday.

Photos from the scene showed some of the swastikas scrawled around the name “Adolf Hitler.”

The graffiti was found in Gravesend Park, which is adjacent to Boro Park, a neighborhood with a large Orthodox population.

The graffiti drew condemnation from city and state leaders, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Governor Kathy Hochul, and Attorney General Letitia James.

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, who is Jewish, visited the playground on Thursday, alongside other Jewish community leaders from the neighborhood and the city government.

Menin, a moderate Democrat, proposed a five-point plan for combating antisemitism last week.

In a separate case, on Wednesday, federal prosecutors announced hate crime charges against a suspect for attacking Jews in New York City in October.

Alazim Baker, 29, allegedly approached a visiting Israeli rabbi near a kosher restaurant in Manhattan and asked the rabbi, “What is your religion?” Baker blocked the victim from entering the restaurant, grabbed his kippah, threw it on the ground, stomped on the kippah and spit on it, then punched the rabbi in the face, knocking him onto the ground and into a bike lane.

While the rabbi was on the ground, bleeding, Baker yelled, “Let me spit on that Jew.” The rabbi suffered a brain bleed, prosecutors said.

Baker attacked two other Jews who intervened, punching one in the head and chasing another, while shouting, “Your people own everything,” and, “I want my reparation.” One of the victims said Baker was wearing brass knuckles.

Baker, from Irvington, New Jersey, was charged with two hate crimes, each carrying a maximum 10-year sentence.

Federal authorities sometimes handle more serious hate crime cases.

In a third case, Myles Utz, who had been charged with a hate crime for attacking Jews in 2024, pleaded guilty on Tuesday.

Utz agreed to a plea bargain, avoiding trial proceedings. Utz’s victims were opposed to a prison sentence, a Jewish community courtroom observer told The Times of Israel.

Utz is expected to be sentenced to probation, anti-bias training, and two orders of protection for the victims. He will be formally sentenced in March.

NYC (W. 72nd)- a man caught tearing down posters of kidnapped Israelis charges at an elderly Jewish man and then spits on him!

He yells "Free Palestine" before finally leaving. pic.twitter.com/XSVwtBjGM5

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) June 17, 2024

Utz, 31 at the time of his arrest in 2024, was indicted for attacking two Jewish men, aged 25 and 74, on the Upper West Side. Utz shouted “free Palestine” at the victims, shouted antisemitic slurs, threw two glass bottles at one of them, and spat at the other, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said.

Jews are targeted in hate crimes in New York City more than all other groups combined, according to NYPD data.