It was adding injury to insult.
A star-spangled banner planted in the sidewalk outside the Flatlands Volunteer Ambulance Corps was stolen right off its pole by a flag-hating fiend just days after its owners prevailed in their war with the city attempt to pull it down.
The Corps’ security cameras recorded footage of the incident, which shows the vandal reaching up and ripping down the flag just before 11 pm on June 26, before casually walking away, heading west on Avenue N toward Utica Avenue.
The flag has flown in front of the ambulance corps headquarters at the corner of Avenue N and Schenectady Avenue since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and its theft has stunned the patriotic volunteers.
“We’re disappointed that people in this neighborhood could desecrate the flag like that,” said Joe Auerbach, the Corps’ spokesman.
The members of the Corps usually take the flag inside in the evening once their shift ends and run it back up every morning when a new shift begins. But a spotlight illuminates the flag at night, as required by the Flag Code, for nights when volunteers work an extend shift.
They’ve already found a temporary replacement for the stolen star-spangled banner, but that has not been much comfort.
“I think it’s a disgrace,” said Caruso, an Army veteran who has volunteered with the Corps for more than 30 years. “People have no respect for this country or what it stands for anymore.”
The flag had only recently faced down its greatest challenge in the 14 years that it hung uneventfully from a pole mounted in the sidewalk near the curb in front of the ambulance corps headquarters.
Last month, Department of Sanitation issued a $300 citation — standing six inches from the curb, the star-spangled banner was deemed to be a sidewalk obstruction. That instance also left the volunteers peeved.
“I feel that it’s an insult to America and to the American flag,” Caruso said at the time. “A flag flapping is really not a danger.”
Caruso fought the ticket in court, and on June 16 it was dismissed on a technicality. The citation was written to “Minerva Carabello,” a name with no affiliation to the Corps. Once Caruso made clear that he had no idea who Carabello was, the judge trashed the ticket, and no properly written citation has ever been given, so the flag had flown proudly every day since — until it was ripped down last week.
Caruso said he was puzzled how someone who wanted an American flag of their own could do something so heinous — especially when all they would have had to do is ask.
“If they wanted a flag, if they wanted one for their house, I would have wholeheartedly given them one,” he said.
