Police: Ex-NYPD cop sprayed anti-Semitic graffiti in Brooklyn
Jakarta immigrant sprays swastikas, hate slur on vechiles, school and synagogue in the Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park.
A former New York City police officer was arrested Sunday for spray-painting anti-Semitic graffiti on cars and buildings in a mostly Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood.
Michael Setiawan was picked up after police received a call on Saturday evening about the swastikas and other anti-Semitic vandalism in Borough Park.
The spray-painted words were found on 15 vehicles and four buildings near a Jewish synagogue and school run by the ultra-Orthodox Bobov community.
Among the hate slur Setiawan is believed to have written are the words “F--- you Jew” and “Jew cheap s---” on the walls of the Bnos Zion Bobov School on 14th Ave. and on buildings and cars along Dahill Road, 37th St. and 14th Ave. near 38th St., according to the New York Daily News.
A bald man believed to be Setiawan was caught on surveillance cameras spray-painting a wall during Saturday night's vandalism rampage, the Daily News reported.
Police say Setiawan was an officer in the New York City Police Department until 2007. According to the Daily News, he left the force after only two years of service because he was suffering from depression.
A resident of Bellerose, Queens, where the Setiawan family lives, told the Daily News that Setiawan is "mentally ill, possibly with bipolar disorder." Despite that, he said, Setiawan was "a good guy. Quiet. Helpful."
His father, Thomas, said Michael Setiawan was 12 when the family emigrated from Jakarta, Indonesia, in 1989 after winning the green card lottery.
Michael Setiawan was to be arraigned later Sunday or Monday. His father said he did not yet have an attorney.
The Jewish community in Borough Park was rattled by the incident, but community leaders vowed that bigotry won’t be tolerated.
"We have many Holocaust survivors here, many elderly people and children who are appropriately frightened by unprovoked hate attacks upon their schools and community," Assemblyman Dov Hikind told the Daily News, adding that “hate attacks on our community will not go unpunished.”
