NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- The NYPD on Tuesday released a new surveillance photo of a man who allegedly toppled a crucifix and burned an American flag outside a Brooklyn church last week.
The man entered the grounds of St. Athanasius Roman Catholic Church in Bensonhurst around 1:30 a.m. on May 13 and tore down a large crucifix, police said.
The man also removed an American flag that was hanging on the front of the building and burned it, damaging a fence in the process, the NYPD said.
NYPD/St. Athanasius Church
The church first announced the vandalism in a Facebook post Friday.
Rev. Edwin Ortiz, a priest at the church, told 1010 WINS a custodian discovered the damage Friday morning.
"Normally we have two Masses in the morning… and one of our custodians saw the cross, the cross that we have in the corner of the school, it was knocked down and broken," he said. "And that's really when we found out this morning. We found out through him and immediately we contacted the police in order to let them know."
The NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident.
In a statement released on Saturday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he was "disgusted to learn that St. Athanasius Church, a historically Italian American place of worship in Brooklyn, has been vandalized."
"These acts of hate should offend and outrage every New Yorker, and I want the Bensonhurst community to know we will do everything we can to bring the cowardly vandals responsible for this to justice," he said. "Hate has no place in our state, and as New Yorkers we celebrate our diversity."
Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS.
