CROWN HEIGHTS — Police are looking for help identifying a man wanted for spray-painting a swastika on a Crown Heights street over the weekend.
The NYPD released a video Monday of a man wearing a backpack and a gray sweater walking in surveillance footage with another unidentified person.
The police department believes the suspect spray-painted the symbol at approximately 6 p.m. on Saturday outside a 78-year-old man’s home on Montgomery Street, near Brooklyn Avenue, in an area that's home to many in the Lubavitch Jewish community.
The suspect painted the swastika — the legs of which point in a different direction from the symbol used by the Nazis — in white paint on the sidewalk near the curb, then fled westbound on foot on Montgomery Street, police said.
The symbol will be investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task forces, police sources said.
Less than 24 hours after the graffiti appeared on the street, a self-described “anarchist” painted over and crossed out the swastika, tweeting out a warning to whomever put it there: “Nazi scum be afraid.”
On Sunday, the mayor's office condemned the vandalism and all "acts of violence in our beautifully diverse city" and asked New Yorkers to report incidents to 911.
Acts of violence in our beautifully diverse city will not be tolerated. We are all better than this. Report incidents to @NYPDNews via 911. https://t.co/AddQT3rOdL
— NYC Mayor's Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) November 13, 2016
No arrests have yet been made in the first spray-painting incident. It was not immediately clear if police are looking for the second spray painter.
