Rockland County, NY – Spring Valley police are vowing to punish a group of Chasidic boys who stole an Israeli flag from a local home last week.
The incident took place on May 11th, two days before Israeli Independence Day.
Surveillance footage from the Morris Road home posted online shows a boy with black hair and glasses in a blue button down shirt and black pants snatching the flag from the porch before racing away with five other boys.
Two of the boys appear to be older than the others and are dressed in bekeshes and black hats.
Police are looking for the six boys and say they will be punished in juvenile court.
Lieutenant CJ Schnaars of the Spring Valley Police Department told News 12 that they are looking into the incident which is being classified as larceny.
“Any video helps us,” said Schnaars. “The more people that have video surveillance on their homes, the better off we are it assists us in our investigations.”
Schnaars said speculated that the incident may have been politically motivated.
“We do know that some members of the community don’t recognize Israel so there could be some dispute between them there,” said Schnaars.
One Chasidic neighbor who identified himself only as Morris said that he doubted that anyone on the block harbored those sentiments.
“I don’t know that we have neighbors like this in his neighborhood, none of them,” said Morris.
Police are hoping to locate the flag and return it to its rightful owners.
