Police arrested a 29-year-old Riverdale man in a series of rock-throwing attacks on four synagogues in the Bronx neighborhood.
Police said Jordan Burnette was the same person seen on surveillance video at the synagogues, where windows and door glass were smashed in a series of attacks over the weekend of April 24-25.
Burnette was stopped by police early Saturday morning as he was riding his bicycle against the flow of traffic, a police spokesperson said. Near the area were he was stopped, police found found a van with a broken windshield. Surveillance video allegedly showed Burnette throwing a rock at it, police said.
A caretaker at nearby Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel identified Burnette’s bike as one that had been stolen from the synagogue parking lot, the New York Post reports.
Burnette was charged Saturday with burglary as a hate crime. He “faces numerous charges related to the many acts of vandalism as hate crimes that have taken place in this community,” Jessica Corey, the commanding officer of the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force, said at a briefing in Riverdale.
“I think that this will bring a great sense of relief to that community,” said John Miller, the NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism. “Hopefully life will resume back to normal and people will be able to worship without fear.”
