New York City Briefs

B'klyn march protests anti-Semitic vandals

Dozens of residents marched through a Brooklyn neighborhood Sunday to protest against vandals who torched three cars and scrawled Nazi swastikas in an area populated by Orthodox Jews.

Protesters said they were stunned after unknown vandals set the cars ablaze, spray-painted the letters "KKK" on a van, defaced four public benches with 16 swastikas and left other anti-Semitic messages on a sidewalk in the Midwood neighborhood before dawn on Friday. Police have made no arrests.

"I've never seen this level of violence here," State Assemb. Dov Hikind said. "This goes beyond the pale -- blowing up cars in the middle of the Jewish community."

About 100 people joined the march through Midwood. They passed the benches on Ocean Parkway that had been defaced with swastikas -- all removed within hours of their discovery.

The three torched cars had been parked nearby. Hikind said authorities told him they believe rags were soaked in gasoline, placed under the cars and lit.

The marchers carried an Israeli flag and were led by Hikind, state Sen. Eric Adams, Rabbi Chaim Gruber, New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel and other community leaders.

Dead man in car

said to be livery driver

Police say a man was found shot to death in a car near Rockaway Park in Queens, and a federation of taxi drivers believes he was a livery car driver.

Police received a 911 call at 7:40 a.m. Sunday, saying a man had been shot four blocks from the beach-side park. Officers found the 30-year-old man in the driver's seat of a white Ford Crown Victoria with a gunshot wound to the head.

Police have not released his identity. Detectives are investigating.

The New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers planned to announce a reward yesterday for information about his death. The federation represents drivers for New York's livery car services. They are dispatched by radio to customers and cannot pick up people who hail them on the street.

Compiled from wire services