CYPRESS HILLS — Three teens on Tuesday toppled 70 headstones, broke 15 marble markers in a mausoleum and scrawled "ching chong" and "f--k the NYPD" throughout the Cypress Hills Cemetery, where slain NYPD detective Wenjian Liu is interred, in what police are investigating as a hate crime, officials said.
The three suspects, who appear to be between 16 and 19 years old, broke into the cemetery at 833 Jamaica Ave. about 12:14 a.m. early Tuesday and began vandalizing the graves in an Asian section, another section and two memorial abbeys in the center of the grounds, an NYPD spokesman said.
The cemetery has interred several notable people including Jackie Robinson, Nixzmary Brown and Wenjian Liu, who was fatally shot along with his partner as they sat in their squad car in Bedford-Stuyvesant in 2014.
Cemetery officials said none of their graves were disturbed.
The hateful graffiti they wrote included "f--k Jackie Chan" and the phrase "ching chong" on a grave that appeared to originally have an Asian language on it, an NYPD spokesman said.
The teens, who can be seen in police video released Wednesday, also wrote the phrase, "f--k sand n---ers," police said.
They knocked over 70 headstones and covered them with spray painted words, police and cemetery officials said.
They also broke into one of the cemetery's mausoleums and shattered 15 memorial markers in there, police said. They also spray painted those graves, police said.
About 15 workers had repaired much of the damage the teens did by Wednesday, officials said.
"We had about 70 stones that were knocke ddown, which are all back up. We're trying to get a lot of cleanup done so we can move on," said Stacey Cullen, director of operations at the cemetery.
"I think they came in and just wanted to do some damage," Cullen added.
The NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident, police said.
Cemetery staff didn't immediately return a request for comment.
Anyone with information should contact Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS (8477).
