CROWN HEIGHTS — Police are ramping up security outside the 77th Precinct where an NYPD officer’s personal car was burned by an unknown person late Wednesday night, police said.
There is no clear motive for why the black Dodge Challenger was set on fire around 10 p.m. at the corner of Utica Avenue and Bergen Street in Crown Heights, police said. The car, which did not have police placards in its windows at the time, had been parked by an officer on the north side of the station house earlier in the day, according to the precinct.
Photos posted online of the car show the dust-covered vehicle with at least one window broken, surrounded by police tape.
Another shot of the car on Utica Ave. It's got a busted front window, burn marks on the roof and grey dust all over pic.twitter.com/0xulPO2Y55
— eli m. rosenberg (@emrosenberg) December 4, 2014“In the 17-and-a-half years that I’ve been at the 77, this has never happened before,” said community affairs officer Tania Salters of the incident.
Salters could not say whether the incident is being investigated in relation to citywide protests held Wednesday night of a Staten Island grand jury’s decision to not indict the police officer in the death of Eric Garner. The detective squad at the precinct is looking at all possibilities, she said.
“There’s no way for us to know if this one particular officer was being targeted … or if this has anything to do with the protests or if it was just a random act,” she said.
No arrests have been made as of Thursday afternoon.
As police canvass the area for any surveillance video of the incident — the precinct does not have cameras on the side of the building where the car was burned, Salters said — two additional officers have been assigned to monitor the station house for the time being “so this doesn’t become a pattern.”
“We are beefing up security around the perimeter of the precinct just to secure — not just the cops’ cars — but the community’s cars,” as well, Salters said.
Anyone with information about the incident is encouraged to call the 77th Precinct at (718) 735-0611.
