Teens Spray Swastikas, Hamas On Yorkville Buildings: Police

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Four boys took to the roofs of a handful of Yorkville buildings to spray after school antisemitic messages of hate, including a swastika, according to police and reports.

On Oct. 9 at about 5:20 p.m., the gang of four scaled four buildings near East 85th Street and Third Avenue and spray painted antisemitic graffiti on their rooftops, police officials said.

The group's hate-filled antisemitic messages reportedly included swastikas and the word "Hamas," according to the Daily News, just days after the cited group brutally killed at least 1,400 people in Israel.

This wasn't the first time that week that the disturbing Nazi symbol had been marked on an Upper East Side building.

Just a day after the four teens took to the rooftops, a swastika was found scrawled outside of the kosher 2nd Avenue Deli.

Police said they are investigating the newly reported antisemitism as a hate crime.

Citywide, the NYPD recorded 69 antisemitic hate crimes in October — a 214 percent rise from the same month last year— despite hate crimes actually falling year-to-date compared to last year overall.

Local Muslim groups have also reported a sharp rise in hate crimes, though the reports are not reflected in the NYPD data which only shares complaints reported to the department.

People with information on the four young boys are asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or, for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).