An FDNY member has been arrested for allegedly vandalizing a sukkah on the Upper East Side back in October, police and fire officials said.
Marty Party, a 37-year-old firefighter with the department, was arrested Friday on a charge of criminal mischief, the NYPD said. He's since been suspended by the FDNY for four weeks without pay.
On the eve of Sukkot, a Jewish celebration, a man was caught on video kicking in the sukkah in front of the Chabad Israel Center on East 92nd Street and First Avenue.
Video footage captured around 1:20 a.m. showed the man damaging the hut built for the Festival of Sukkot, a commemoration of the shelters built by Israelites as they wandered the desert.
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Officials also said the man urinated on the structure before damaging it.
"Sukkot is about unity, and this Jewish year is a Hakhel year, a year of gathering, underscoring the theme of unity, so this presents another opportunity for people to come together and do a mitzvah," Rabbi Uriel Vigler, the co-director of the Chabad Israel Center, said.
Also caught on the security footage was a passerby who stepped in to stop the destructive vandal.
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"There was a person across the street who came and started shouting at him, told him to stop, told him not to do this. And this is what we want from New Yorkers. We want New Yorkers to stand up for what's right," Vigler said.
