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NYPD Press Release:
CIVIL WAR MONUMENT VANDALS CAUGHT RED-HANDED
Two Manhattan teenagers were captured in the midst of spray-painting their names, nonsensical doodles and swearwords on one of New York City’s most historic military monuments early Thursday morning.
NYPD officers patrolling near the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Monument on Riverside Drive and West 89th Street at 3:20 a.m. quickly responded to a 911 report of graffiti vandals defacing the cenotaph, which commemorates Union Army members who served in the Civil War.
There, Sgt. Nathaniel Herman and Police Officer Carmen Ledesma spotted 17-year-old Mike Kushnir and a 15-year-old girl using red spray paint to defile the memorial.
“When responding to a graffiti call, the suspects are usually long gone when you get there,” Herman said. “But this time we got them, literally, red-handed.”
Herman stopped Kushnir as he attempted to flee from the uniformed cops, and the sergeant noticed red spray paint on the teenager’s skateboard. Similarly, Kushnir’s companion had the tell-tale chroma up and down her left arm.
Both teens were arrested and charged with multiple counts of felony Criminal Mischief for the artistic spree that left the massive 114-year-old monument emblazoned with crude happy and sad faces, nicknames and other designs, some in areas only accessible by climbing.
The first piece of marble for the Greek-styled structure was laid in 1900 during a ceremony presided over by then-New York Gov. Theodore Roosevelt, a former New York City Police Commissioner.
The completed temple-like monument – with its pyramidal roof and 12 Corinthian columns – was unveiled on Memorial Day in 1902 and designated a city landmark in 1976. It was named a state landmark in 2001.
Kushnir, a resident of West 41st Street, has two prior arrests in Manhattan this year for turnstile jumping in the subway system, one arrest for throwing and breaking a computer, and one arrest for shoplifting items at a Gristedes supermarket.
He was separately charged on Thursday with defacing a city-owned lamppost at the corner of Riverside Drive and West 88th Street in May. In that incident, Kushnir used a blue marker to scrawl “Trap” on the metal pole.
The 15-year-old girl, who lives near the memorial, has been charged as a juvenile. She was additionally charged with Criminal Mischief and Making Graffiti for a March incident in which she tagged a neighborhood mailbox with her initials.
The number of individuals arrested for such offenses in the five boroughs through August 24 has risen from 1,042 in 2013 to 1,080 in 2014 – an increase of 4 percent, according to the NYPD’s latest figures.
CIVIL WAR MONUMENT VANDALS CAUGHT RED-HANDED
Two Manhattan teenagers were captured in the midst of spray-painting their names, nonsensical doodles and swearwords on one of New York City’s most historic military monuments early Thursday morning.
NYPD officers patrolling near the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Monument on Riverside Drive and West 89th Street at 3:20 a.m. quickly responded to a 911 report of graffiti vandals defacing the cenotaph, which commemorates Union Army members who served in the Civil War.
There, Sgt. Nathaniel Herman and Police Officer Carmen Ledesma spotted 17-year-old Mike Kushnir and a 15-year-old girl using red spray paint to defile the memorial.
“When responding to a graffiti call, the suspects are usually long gone when you get there,” Herman said. “But this time we got them, literally, red-handed.”
Herman stopped Kushnir as he attempted to flee from the uniformed cops, and the sergeant noticed red spray paint on the teenager’s skateboard. Similarly, Kushnir’s companion had the tell-tale chroma up and down her left arm.
Both teens were arrested and charged with multiple counts of felony Criminal Mischief for the artistic spree that left the massive 114-year-old monument emblazoned with crude happy and sad faces, nicknames and other designs, some in areas only accessible by climbing.
The first piece of marble for the Greek-styled structure was laid in 1900 during a ceremony presided over by then-New York Gov. Theodore Roosevelt, a former New York City Police Commissioner.
The completed temple-like monument – with its pyramidal roof and 12 Corinthian columns – was unveiled on Memorial Day in 1902 and designated a city landmark in 1976. It was named a state landmark in 2001.
Kushnir, a resident of West 41st Street, has two prior arrests in Manhattan this year for turnstile jumping in the subway system, one arrest for throwing and breaking a computer, and one arrest for shoplifting items at a Gristedes supermarket.
He was separately charged on Thursday with defacing a city-owned lamppost at the corner of Riverside Drive and West 88th Street in May. In that incident, Kushnir used a blue marker to scrawl “Trap” on the metal pole.
The 15-year-old girl, who lives near the memorial, has been charged as a juvenile. She was additionally charged with Criminal Mischief and Making Graffiti for a March incident in which she tagged a neighborhood mailbox with her initials.
The number of individuals arrested for such offenses in the five boroughs through August 24 has risen from 1,042 in 2013 to 1,080 in 2014 – an increase of 4 percent, according to the NYPD’s latest figures.