Cypress Hills Cemetery, Photo by Ant Desmond (wikicommons)
Oct. 31, 2017 By Christian Murray
A Forest Hills man is one of three individuals who faces up to 15 years in prison for smashing more than 48 headstones and spray-painting racist slurs on them in the Cypress Hills Cemetery in August, according to the Queens District Attorney.
Mark Barrancos, 21, of Forest Hills, Bruno Camacho, 21, of Elmhurst, and Edward Evseev, 21, of Richmond Hill, were arrested yesterday and charged with burglary, criminal trespass and criminal mischief as hate crimes.
The men allegedly knocked over 72 headstones in the cemetery’s Parkside subdivision between 6:00 p.m. on Aug. 14 and 6:15 a.m. the following day and damaged 48 of them with paint, scrawling phrases such as “N—er,” “I hate sand N—ers” and “F–k NYPD.”
The men also wrote “Ching Chong” on two Asian monuments, and on a headstone with Asian writing scribbled “F..K Jackie Chan.”
In addition, inside the Memorial Abbey Mausoleum, 15 vaults were damaged with at least two marble enclosures cracked.
The men were arraigned last night with bail set at $100,000 bond/$70,000 cash for each defendant and they were ordered to return to court on Nov. 15.
“Even in their eternal rest the dead of Queens County cannot escape from the bigotry and hatred that brews in some people’s hearts,” said Richard A. Brown, Queens District Attorney. Fortunately, working jointly with our police partners – the New York City Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force – we were able to bring to justice those accused of this heinous desecration.
Police were able to find the men after releasing surveillance video of the trio entering the cemetery.
Defendants were caught on video (NYPD)
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