2023-11-10 00:10:00
Metro
Israel war 2023
Published
Nov. 9, 2023
Updated
Nov. 9, 2023, 6:03 p.m. ET
Two young men were arrested for tearing down posters of hostages kidnapped in the Israel-Hamas war that were hung up outside a private property in Gramercy Park, police said Thursday.
Charlotte Wimer, who uses he/him pronouns, and Gray Segal, both 18, were arrested just following 5 p.m. Wednesday following they were caught ripping down posters of Israeli children and adults kidnapped by the terrorist group on display outside 201 E. 23rd St., cops said.
Both Wimer and Segal, who live on the Lower East Side, were charged with criminal mischief, police said.
The pair were spotted leaving the Ludlow Residence – a School of Visual Arts dormitory located on its namesake street – Thursday with suitcases as they got into an Uber. They declined to comment when approached by a Post reporter.
Video taken moments following the incident and shared on X shows the two men in handcuffs standing in front of the disheveled wall of posters.
Before the incident, the wall of the privately owned building had been completely covered in red and white signs with the word “KIDNAPPED” written in all caps above photographs of missing hostages, as well as posters of the Israeli flag.
Video taken moments following the incident and shared on X shows the two men in handcuffs standing in front of the disheveled wall of posters. @ManhattanMingle / X
A photo taken Thursday followingnoon and shared under the initial video on X showed that new posters had been put up in place of the ones that were torn down.
A neighbor who only provided her first name, Anne, 66, told The Post Thursday that she saw “two girls and a guy, college age, pulling off tape [that holds the posters to the wall].”
“I said ‘You shouldn’t be doing this. You do that, you’re going to get your ass licked and nobody will feel sorry for you.’”
She said an unofficial groups comes around daily to replace the torn-down posters, but they become defaced once morest with “Free Palestine” and “Stop Palestinian genocide” graffiti.
Rita Capozzi, who also lives nearby, said he had enough and was “in favor of people being arrested for ripping down these posters.”
“They’re thugs and these are mischievous, criminal acts,” Capozzi told The Post. “During 9/11, this is what people did [putting up posters of missing people]. This is a crisis for Israelis. Ripping down pictures of innocent people is horrible.”
Another neighbor, Nikki Schreier, 55, who owns a dog walking business in Manhattan, said she thought ripping the posters down was “horrific.”
“I think it’s horrific. I don’t think they know what the whole story behind this conflict [is],” she said. “They’re just doing this. I wish all this stuff would end.”
Posters drawing attention to the 240 people who were taken hostage by Hamas during the terror group’s Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel have been plastered all across the Big Apple as a way to draw attention to their plight.
Over the past month, countless individuals have been filmed across the five boroughs tearing down or vandalizing the hostage posters — a disturbing trend that has been blasted by city leaders as antisemitic and inhumane.
The men were each charged with criminal mischief. @ManhattanMingle / X
Among the offenders were an NYU student who lost her job offer over the scandal, a Brooklyn man who was arrested following getting into a caught-on-video scuffle with people trying to stop him from ripping down posters on the Upper East Side, and a public defender who got to keep her job following apologizing for her brazen actions.
At least 1,400 people, most of them civilians, were killed by Hamas during its sudden assault on Israel.
Ever since, Israel has heightened its assault on Gaza, where 10,569 people have been killed, of whom 40% were children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
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