NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Police on Friday night nabbed the man who allegedly stole a gold-plated rose from a Manhattan church’s 9/11 memorial earlier this week.
Deikel Alcantara, 21, is charged with third-degree grand larceny for the Nov. 20 crime.
At about 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, police said that Alcantara entered the Church of St. Francis of Assisi at 135 West 31st St.
Once inside, he is accused of snatching a gold-plated metal rose from the Catholic church’s 9/11 memorial before fleeing the location on foot.
The memorial honors the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and is centered around the rose and three pieces of steel recovered from the World Trade Center site. Among those honored in the memorial are Father Mychal F. Judge, a Catholic priest at the church and FDNY chaplain who was killed in the attack.
Alcantara was identified as a suspect on Thursday night and arrested Friday in Midtown South, police said.
“We’re very tolerant, we’re very about people’s matters,” the church’s priest, Father Brian Jordan, told ABC7. “But when you do the vandalism, destruction of a property and a desecration, then you’ve won to the limit.”
Jordan said that Alcantara frequented the church in the past and previously had to be escorted from the premises.
There is no word on whether the memorial rose has been recovered.