Two teenagers have been arrested after allegedly spray‑painting dozens of swastikas and other antisemitic messages throughout a Brooklyn playground frequented by Jewish children, the NYPD said on Thursday, according to NBC4.
Police launched a hate‑crime investigation after nearly five dozen symbols were discovered late Wednesday morning across walls, a court and a slide at Gravesend Park in Borough Park. Photos from the scene showed one wall defaced with the words "Adolf Hitler."
City crews later painted over the graffiti, but only after NYPD investigators documented the vandalism and confirmed it was being treated as a hate crime.
The Anti‑Defamation League noted that this was the second consecutive day swastikas had been found in the same park. Police said more than a dozen swastikas were discovered earlier in the week on the playground and handball court.
On Thursday, officers arrested two 15‑year‑old boys in connection with the incidents, reported NBC4. One was charged with aggravated harassment and criminal mischief as a hate crime, while the second faces multiple counts of aggravated harassment.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani condemned the attacks, saying, "I am sickened by this antisemitic vandalism …. Antisemitism has no place in our city, and I stand shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish New Yorkers who were targeted."
New York Governor Kathy Hochul also denounced the vandalism, calling it a "depraved act of antisemitism. In a children's playground where our kids should feel safe and have fun. There is no excuse. There is zero tolerance."
New York has seen a sharp uptick in incidents of antisemitism since October 7, 2023. Data released by the New York City Police Department on the day before the mayoral election in November, won by Mamdani, revealed that Jews were the victims in 62% of all hate crimes reported last month, with 29 antisemitic incidents out of a total of 47.
On the very day that Mamdani was elected, swastikas were sprayed on the Magen David Yeshiva in Brooklyn.
Nearly two weeks after the election, antisemitic graffiti reading “F**k Jews" was found scrawled on a sidewalk in the Cobble Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn.
In December, a Jewish man was stabbed in broad daylight in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn in what police are investigating as a possible antisemitic attack.