'Depraved act of antisemitism': Brooklyn teens arrested for painting swastikas and 'Hitler' on playground

Amid an ongoing antisemitic crisis in New York, two Brooklyn teens were arrested on Thursday after they painted more than 50 swastikas on a playground in a predominantly Jewish area of the city.

The 15-year-olds both face aggravated harassment charges with one teen also facing a charge of criminal mischief as a hate crime, said the New York Police Department.

Repeated incidents of antisemitism

The incident was reported to be a repeated occurrence that led to the investigation and later, the arrest, as per CNN. On Monday, officers responded to a call at Gravesend Park in the southwest Brooklyn neighbourhood of Borough Park. They found about 16 swastikas painted in red on slides, walls and the ground on the location, just before 7:30 pm.

Next, on Wednesday at 11 am, they responded to another call and discovered 57 swastikas at the same playground in red, blue and yellow. Additionally, the name of the antisemitic Nazi leader, "Adolf Hitler" was also scrawled in paint.

The Brooklyn Community Board 12, which represents the area, shared photos of the vandalism on X. The Borough Park neighbourhood houses about 46,000 Jewish adults and 50,000 children. As per a 2023 study by the non-profit UJA-Federation of New York, about 45% of the households in the area include a Jewish person.

Lack of monitoring in targeted neighbourhoods

According to Barry Spitzer, district manager of Community Board District 112, there are no security cameras at Gravesend Park. Repeated requests have been made to the city's Parks Department for cameras to help tackle drug use in the park.

However, now Spitzer shared that he has received assurances that the Parks Department would send staff to lock the park at night at least till the end of the month, and he is hopeful the cameras will be installed soon.

“Some people don’t realize the hurt that it causes, symbols like this. I mean, all of us here are descendants of Holocaust survivors,” he told Forward. “If this is normal, then God forbid, much worse things become normal.”

Authorities promise serious action

Cases of antisemitic vandalism have been on the rise in in New York over the past few years. They have seen a sharp rise in number after the onset of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023. In 2025, there were 576 hate crime incidents in NYC, with about 330 targeting Jews, as per NYPD data.

The city's political officials reacted to the vandalism and pledged an investigation in a series of statements. “I am sickened by this antisemitic vandalism in Borough Park. Antisemitism has no place in our city, and I stand shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish New Yorkers who were targeted," wrote Mayor Zohran Mamdani in an X post. “My administration is working closely with the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force as well as our Parks Department, and those responsible will be investigated and held accountable.”



Governor Kathy Hochul also took to X, calling the vandalism “a depraved act of antisemitism." "In a children's playground where our kids should feel safe and have fun. There is no excuse. There is zero tolerance," she wrote directing the New York State Hate Crimes Task Force to offer assistance to the NYPD in the investigation.



This incident is followed by one in November 2025 when the Magen David Yeshiva in Gravesend, a cemetery and Jewish social services organization were spray painted with swastikas overnight. The arrests for the same are yet to be made.