Turning water into crime
Pees on, shatters B’klyn church art
A vandal urinated on two religious statues outside a Brooklyn church before smashing them to the ground, in an incident caught on video that police are investigating as a hate crime, authorities said on Monday.
The video shows the man with his hands near his pants standing by the figures shortly before 4 a.m. Sunday in front of Our Lady of Consolation Roman Catholic Church on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg.
The footage shows the man suddenly push one angel statue to the ground, partially smashing it. He does the same to the second statue.
He then calmly walks away, heading south on Metropolitan Avenue, police said.
“Those broken statues were found [by] our pastor around 6 a.m. Sunday,” said Father Andrzej Wasko, a vicar at the church, which is largely attended by the Polish community.
Wasko said he did not recognize the brute seen in the video, who cops described as being approximately 30 years old, 6 feet tall and 190 pounds.
The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident.
Wasko said this was the third time the statues in front of the church have been vandalized.
Just “a few months ago” a different vandal targeted the same statues, he said. No police report was filed for the previous 2018 incident, according to an NYPD spokesperson.
One of the angels was also destroyed in 2016, when a group of suspects began climbing on the platform on which the figures were placed — sending the statue crashing to the ground, police and witnesses said at the time.