A former New York City police officer has been arrested on charges that he spray-painted anti-Semitic profanities on cars and buildings in a mostly Jewish neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY, including the front doors of a religious elementary school.
Michael Setiawan was picked up before dawn on Sunday after police received a 911 call on Saturday evening about the swastikas, and other anti-Semitic graffiti in Borough Park.
The 36-year-old faces charges of criminal mischief and aggravated harassment as hate crimes. Setiawan was a city officer until 2007, serving in Brooklyn's 69th precinct in the Canarsie neighborhood, police said.
The words spray-painted in red were found on 15 vehicles and four buildings near the Bnos Zion synagogue and school run by the ultra-Orthodox Bobov community, according to the 'Associated Press'. A surveillance camera at the school captured a suspect; police blurred out the face in the video. They would not immediately say whether the man was Setiawan.