Police release photos of latest Brooklyn Heights vandalism suspects

Paint, broken glass, insects at Columbia University exec’s home

August 12, 2024 Mary Frost

An Orange Street co-op was defaced by pro-Palestinian vandals on Thursday, Aug. 8. It was the second such attack recently in Brooklyn Heights. Photo by Mary Frost

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BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — Police have released surveillance photos of five suspects in the most recent pro-Palestinian act of criminal vandalism in Brooklyn Heights. They also released a photo of a man they want to speak to who was seen in the vicinity of the crime.

Residents of a brick co-op on Orange Street woke up Thursday to find their building, vestibule and sidewalk splattered with blood-red paint and triangle-shaped symbols related to the pro-Palestinian cause, with the glass in the front door cracked.

A preliminary investigation by NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force found that at roughly 3 a.m., two of the vandals entered the building’s vestibule while throwing red paint and an open box of insects — crickets and mealworms — on the vestibule floor. One of them smashed the glass in the lobby door with a hammer. Outside the vestibule, three other vandals defaced the building’s exterior with paint.

Police are seeking this vandal who smashed the front-door glass in a Brooklyn Heights co-op with a hammer on Aug. 8. Description: dark complexion, 18-30 years old, 5′ foot 6″ tall and 150-160 pounds. Photo: NYPD

Police obtained surveillance photos from the building and also from the Clark Street subway station.

A police photo also shows an open box which had contained the crickets and mealworms on the vestibule floor, with packing material scattered. Crickets and mealworms are sold by pet suppliers to feed reptiles, birds and other animals. Mealworms, which are the larvae of darkling beetles, range in size from about a half inch to an inch long when shipped.

The pre-war building on Orange Street is the home of Columbia University’s chief operating officer Cas Holloway. The vandals hung a “wanted” poster with Holloway’s photo outside of the building, according to the New York Post.

A second vandal was observed throwing insects inside the co-op’s vestibule. Description: possibly female, carrying a black garbage bag and blue book bag. Photo: NYPD

Columbia has been embroiled in pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionism protests set off by the Israeli response to the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Palestinian supporters claim Holloway had signed off on the use of excessive force in a crackdown on protesters occupying a Columbia University building in Morningside Heights.

“Columbia unequivocally condemns vandalism, threats, and personal attacks,” a Columbia spokesperson said Thursday.

As of Monday, Aug. 12, Columbia University’s Morningside campus is closed to all except university ID holders and pre-authorized guests, with limited campus entry points.

‘Threats, not advocacy’

“This attack on our neighbor’s home is unacceptable,” Councilmember Lincoln Restler said Thursday. “I am deeply disappointed to see protest take the form of vandalism.“

“The Brooklyn Heights Association strongly condemns the vandalism discovered [Thursday] at an apartment building in our neighborhood which is the home of a Columbia University official,” BHA said in a statement. “Like the similar targeting of a nearby apartment building in June, these attempts to intimidate leaders of the city’s cultural and educational institutions, their neighbors and our community at large cannot be considered peaceful protest related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Vandals cracked the glass on the front door and reportedly threw crickets inside the vestibule. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

Previous Heights attack also classified as a hate crime

The previous Brooklyn Heights vandalism incident, also classified as a hate crime, took place at the home of the president of the Brooklyn Museum on June 12. Six vandals splattered red spray paint on the windows, pillars, a walkway and front door of Anne Pasternak’s Hicks Street co-op building and strung a sign with bloody handprints across the entrance calling her a “white-supremacist Zionist.”

Two people connected to the June incident have been arrested so far, including Taylor Pelton, 28, a resident of Astoria, Queens, who was charged on July 31 with eight counts of “hate crime/criminal mischief property.” On Aug. 6, police arrested Samuel Seligson, an independent Brooklyn videographer, who — though not accused of being an active participant — is alleged to have been traveling in a car with the vandals, entering private property with them and filming the destruction.

The June vandalism also targeted three other homes belonging to members of the Brooklyn Museum’s board, including one in Boerum Hill.

Paint washes down Orange Street to the drain on the corner following Thursday morning’s vandalism. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

“Nothing like that should be acceptable,” a longtime resident of the Hicks Street building told the Eagle on Thursday. “We have security every single night now, and the police have come.”

She added, “I think it’s hurting their cause. I think there’s a better way, more intelligent and empathetic. They’re making it sound like none of us have the right to be comfortable. Bad enough we have to worry about so many things now — being safe just walking down the street.”