Patrols beefed up after Brooklyn vandalism

Extra cops will patrol Brooklyn's Midwood section this weekend after arson attacks and swastika scrawlings along busy Ocean Parkway early Friday, the NYPD said.

Three cars were heavily damaged in the arson attack, a van defaced with the letters "KKK" and park benches graffitied, police said. An NYPD spokesman said the department's hate crimes unit was investigating.

Among the markings scrawled on sidewalks and benches was "SS," an abbreviation synonymous with the Nazi Gestapo, which hit hard in a neighborhood where Holocaust survivors have lived for years.

Officials said adding to residents' distress was that it happened some 36 hours after the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the "night of broken glass" when Nazis ransacked synagogues, Jewish homes and businesses in Germany on Nov. 9-10, 1938.

"The fact that this most recent attack came on the heels of the 73rd anniversary of Kristallnacht may or may not be a coincidence. Either way, this kind of hateful act has no place in the freest city in the freest country in the world," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement.

"The destruction of three vehicles is a whole new [anti-Semitic] dimension and disturbed the neighborhood," said Assemb. Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn). "It's a Jewish community of a lot of survivors of the Holocaust."

City Comptroller John Liu and Manhattan borough President Scott Stringer also condemned the incident.

Police got a call around 5:30 a.m. Friday about the car fires along the service road in the 900 block of Ocean Parkway, a private residential building. Investigators also found the defaced van and other graffiti and were canvassing the area in search of surveillance tapes that may be helpful.

"They are putting unbelievable resources on this," Hikind said, referring to the police.

In an apparently unrelated incident, police arrested a Queens man on charges he was involved in several incidents from Oct. 31 to Nov. 3 in which swastikas where drawn on the doors and exterior portions of libraries, a synagogue and a Catholic church, police said.

The suspect, Franco Rodriquez, 40, of 35-88 86th St. in Jackson Heights, admitted to investigators that he drew the graffiti in his neighborhood; he said he did it because Jewish people had been "harassing him," said an NYPD spokeswoman. He was awaiting arraignment late Friday on charges of criminal mischief as a hate crime, police said.