New York Post

Arson kid bus-ted

‘Hate’ crime on Jewish school

- By DANIEL PRENDERGAS­T and LORENA MONGELLI Additional reporting by Natalie O’Neill dprenderga­st@nypost.com

said Devorah Piekarski, the mother of a 7-year-old girl who attends Beis Rivkah.

Police soon caught one of the young alleged vandals and charged him with criminal mischief and arson as hate crimes, because investigat­ors thought it was clear that the bus belonged to the Jewish school.

Jewish community members said this was one of several recent bias incidents.

“Over the past week, three significan­t attacks were perpetrate­d against Jews in Crown Heights,” Barry Sugar, of the Jewish Leadership Council, wrote in a letter to the NYPD’s 71st Precinct Monday. “This is an alarming trend that bears many similariti­es to attacks in the past — only more brazen and more violent.”

The fire comes after a teen threw a brick at a Hasidic bus driver Thursday, shattering the vehicle’s rear-view mirror, according to police. A 13-year-old also threw a metal rod at a Jewish student and punched him in the face Friday, police report.

A group of wild kids tossed flaming sheets of cardboard onto a Brooklyn Jewish school’s empty bus, setting a fire that engulfed the vehicle, surveillan­ce images show.

It’s not clear if the boys knew the bus belonged to the Beis Rivkah Yeshiva for girls in Crown Heights, but when police caught one of the vandals — an 11-yearold boy — they charged him with a hate crime.

Moments after the youths lit the cardboard at about 6 p.m. Sunday (top), the front of the bus erupted into a fireball (center) at Brooklyn and Lefferts avenues, the video images show.

Several schoolgirl­s who were strolling by looked on in horror as clouds of dark smoke billowed into the air.

The FDNY quickly responded (bottom) and put out the blaze. All that was left Monday was the bus’ charred and gutted shell, around which burned remains of Hebrew religious books were strewn on the ground.

“It’s my kid’s school and a kid’s bus, so it’s really sad,”

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