Pro-Palestinian activist in New York charged by feds for torching 11 police vehicles

Jakhi McCray faces up to 20 years for alleged arson; NYPD chief detective says suspect also damaged a statue at Columbia during campus unrest

By Luke Tress 22 July 2025, 12:36 am
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Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.

Police separate Israel supporters and pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Times Square, New York City, October 13, 2023. (Luke Tress)
Police separate Israel supporters and pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Times Square, New York City, October 13, 2023. (Luke Tress)

NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors on Monday charged a pro-Palestinian activist, Jakhi McCray, with torching 11 NYPD vehicles last month.

McCray allegedly climbed a fence to access a parking lot for police vehicles on June 12 in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, according to the federal Eastern District of New York court.

Once inside the lot, McCray allegedly ignited 10 NYPD vehicles and a trailer, the US attorney’s office said.

The cost to replace the vehicles was around $800,000, the statement said.

McCray, 21, was charged in federal court with arson and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment.

The NYPD identified McCray as a suspect last month. NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at the time that McCray was “very active in the protest community, involving the Free Palestine movement.”

Kenny also said McCray damaged a statue at Columbia University during protests on the campus last year.

Court filings said that surveillance video and fingerprints found on a pair of sunglasses at the scene of the arson implicated McCray in the fires.

Ahead of his arrest, police had offered up to $30,000 for information on McCray.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said on Monday that McCray had turned himself in, accompanied by his lawyer, in Brooklyn earlier in the day. He was being held in federal custody.

“Setting police vehicles ablaze is not a form of protest — it is a federal crime. Our office will not tolerate violence or destruction that undermines law enforcement efforts to ensure public safety and will prosecute this individual to the fullest extent of the law,” said US Attorney Joseph Nocella, Jr.

Anti-Israel activist groups, including at Columbia, rallied behind McCray ahead of his initial court appearance on Monday.

“The time has come to rise in solidarity for our comrade, Jakhi McCray,” said Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the campus alliance leading anti-Israel protests at the university. The group has backed other violent offenders in the past, including Tarek Bazrouk, an anti-Israel activist who pleaded guilty last month to assaulting Jews.

Separately, anti-Israel activists in New York said on Monday that they had vandalized the Bronx office of Democratic US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of Israel’s leading critics in Congress.

The anti-Israel protest group Decolonize This Place posted photos showing red paint, reminiscent of blood, splattered on Ocasio-Cortez’s office, and a sign that said, “AOC funds genocide in Gaza.”

Decolonize This Place said the vandalism was an “anonymous submission” from a group called the Boogie Down Liberation Front. The group did not appear to have any previous history or online presence.

Anti-Israel protesters have repeatedly vandalized the offices of elected representatives in New York, including US Representatives Adriano Espaillat, Mike Lawler, Ritchie Torres, and Daniel Goldman.

The vandalism appeared to be a response to Ocasio-Cortez voting against a Congressional amendment, sponsored by US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, to cut funding for Israel’s air defense.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene’s amendment does nothing to cut off offensive aid to Israel nor end the flow of US munitions being used in Gaza. Of course I voted against it,” Ocasio-Cortez posted on X last week. “What it does do is cut off defensive Iron Dome capacities while allowing the actual bombs killing Palestinians to continue.”

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