Cuomo calls on state police to investigate Brooklyn hate crimes twice in one week

June 6, 2019 Paula Katinas

The vandal left this message on the mailbox on Fourth Avenue and 95th Street. Photo courtesy of Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose late father’s name was scrawled alongside an anti-Semitic message left by a vandal on a Bay Ridge mailbox on Wednesday, said he will put the resources of the New York State Police on the case.

The vandal wrote the words “Kill All Jews” on the portion of the front of the mailbox listing the pickup schedule. Next to the anti-Semitic message was a drawing that appeared to a haphazard attempt at a swastika. There were two other messages — one that read “Israel Now” and another bearing the name of the former New York governor, Mario Cuomo.

This is the second time in a week in which Cuomo has ordered the state’s Hate Crime Unit to get involved in a Brooklyn incident. On May 30, the words “Hitler is coming” were found scrawled across an interactive display outside the Brooklyn Jewish Children’s Museum. That day, the governor said he had directed the New York State Police Hate Crimes Unit to assist the NYPD in the investigation into the incident and to provide all resources necessary to hold the vandal accountable.

In February, he did the same thing after an incident in Queens.

After the Bay Ridge mailbox incident on Wednesday, he issued the same call.

“I am disgusted to learn of yet another disturbing incident of anti-Semitism in our state, this time with the words ‘Kill All Jews,’ ‘Israel’ and ‘Mario Cuomo’ written on a mailbox in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Hate speech and threatening language has no place in our state, and the mailbox was immediately replaced with a new one after the graffiti was reported,” Cuomo said in a statement on Thursday.

“Enough is enough. We are reaching our breaking point and these despicable acts of violence must stop.”