Probers Rule Out Vandalism in Damage of Tombstones at NY Cemetery
More than 40 tombstones were disturbed at a historic Jewish cemetery in New York this weekend. Authorities have determined that the incident was the result of environmental damage and not vandalism as what happened in Philadelphia two weeks ago.
CNN reported that a New York City Police Department hate-crime task force came up with findings citing environmental factors from soil erosion to lack of maintenance for the toppling of 42 granite and marble headstones at Washington Cemetery on Bay Parkway in Midwood.
"It definitely was not vandalism," Marisa Tarantino, general manager of the 100-acre cemetery assured. "The older sections, as the stones wear, they do fall over or are unstable. What we do is we lay them across the grave to keep them memorialized rather than taking (them) away."
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But some officials like Councilman David Greenfield are not convinced by the report. "Some of the tombstones are obviously 100 years old," he told New York Daily News. "Others are newer tombstones... You don't have to be a forensic scientist to see that they were very clearly knocked down."
Assemblyman Dov Hikind mentioned a resident who noticed something wrong while passing by the cemetery and reported it to community leaders on Saturday night. "Someone cut this? Who cut it? Why did they do it? Just to have fun?" he asked while pointing at a barbed wire on top of an iron fence that was cut near the toppled headstones.
"In light of everything going on in the country, we wanted to see what this was all about," Hikind added, referring to the rise of anti-Semitism in America. "There are many tombstones that clearly have been pushed over, clearly vandalized. We are not talking about tombstones that are naturally lying down. All you gotta do is walk in there and see that something is just not right," he added,
