Vandals smeared 10 swastikas on two park benches in Gerritsen Beach’s Dr. John’s Playground this week, say neighborhood graffiti busters who fear that the hate-filled wall scrawlers will soon return to the scene of the crime.
Members of the Coney Island-Gravesend Vandals Taskforce claim they found the graffiti in the Gerritsen Avenue play space near Bijou Avenue on Wednesday morning.
“[The vandals] didn’t just put one, or two, but 10 swastikas,” watchdog group founder Ron Greenberg told members of the 61st Precinct Community Council on Wednesday night. “That mean’s they’re going to do it again.”
Greenberg said he found the anti-Semetic scrawlings next to several graffiti tags. One of the tags belonged to Greenberg’s arch-nemesis: a wall scrawler named ESCO.
“He’s a known vandal,” Greenberg said. “I’ve been looking for him for a long time.”
The vandalized benches are next to the basketball courts behind PS 277, where Dr. John Elefterakis — a beloved Gerritsen Beach physician the playground is named after — attended.
Police said they will investigate Greenberg’s claims.
This isn’t the first time swastikas have popped up in Gerritsen Beach: the Nazi hate symbol and the word “Hail” were found on a bulkhead separating Devon Avenue and Plumb Beach Channel back in July.
At the time, police said an investigation into the vandalism was unlikely because no one had filed a complaint about the graffiti, a source within the 61st Precinct told Brooklyn Daily.
