A man was arrested Wednesday after he spray-painted anti-Muslim messages on the doors of an elementary school in Brooklyn earlier this week, police said.
Alan Tatten, 55, wrote the hateful graffiti on multiple entrances to P.S. 52, on East 29th Street and Voorhies Avenue, in Sheepshead Bay shortly before 9 p.m. on Sunday, cops said.
The NYPD released surveillance footage Tuesday night of Tatten, who lives about a block from the school.
One of the hateful statements also was spray-painted onto a bus shelter on Nostrand Avenue, City Councilman Chaim Deutsch, who represents Sheepshead Bay, said.
“We cannot and will not tolerate hate of any kind in New York City,” Deutsch tweeted on Monday. “I’ve reported this to the @NYPD61Pct, and I’m grateful for their quick response.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he was “sickened” by the incident and directed the state Hate Crimes Task Force to assist the NYPD in its investigation.
“This Islamophobic act targeted at our children is completely unacceptable and repugnant to New York’s values,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “As a state and a nation we must come together to condemn hate in all its forms and denounce with one voice anyone who wishes to divide us.”
