Neighbor Spots Weirdo Scrawling Another Crude, Hateful Message In Sheepshead Bay
The local kook who’s been scrawling hateful messages all over Sheepshead Bay — and is sought by police for harassing local politicians — was spotted last week marking up a construction site on Sheepshead Bay Road, a neighbor said.
Kathy Kalayci snapped photos of man she claims to have seen writing “Obama Traitor” on the wall surrounding the seven-story condo building being constructed at Sheepshead Bay Road and Emmons Avenue. Kalayci recognized the graffiti as being similar to other incoherent, juvenile messages on nearby buildings.
“I looked at my husband and said: ‘Oh my god! That’s the Obama traitor guy!'” she said.
The writing at the Rybak site, written in chalk and beside other messages related to presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, resembles graffiti at other properties in Sheepshead Bay.
The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force opened an investigation last year after staffers for Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz found a hammer and sickle drawn in black marker beside the word “commie” on their district office. Authorities believed Cymbrowitz was targeted because he represents a district with a large Russian-Jewish population.
Similar messages, which read “you suck” and “Drop Dead Commie traitor,” were emailed to City Councilman Chaim Deutsch around the same time.
Other crude messages, like “Dem’s are commie queers” and “Obama is ISIS” have been discovered in the neighborhood.
Kalayci, who took the photograph while driving down Sheepshead Bay Road, said she is no fan of Obama, but couldn’t understand the point this vandal is trying to make.
“If I’d had more time, I would have pulled over asked what’s his deal,” she said. “I’m just trying to make sense of the political statement he’s trying to make. I’ve seen his tags at other places and I’d like to know more about him.”
Kalayci said she wasn’t aware of the police investigation and has not sent her photographs to the NYPD.
A source, who asked not to be named because she works for a city agency, said the man in Kalayci’s photograph looks exactly like a person she saw vandalize Cymbrowitz’s office.
This isn’t the first time someone has gained notoriety marking up southern Brooklyn. In 2014, police arrested a 24-year-old man for spray painting portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Ron Burgundy, and President Barack Obama around Sheepshead Bay and Bensonhurst. The charges were eventually dropped — though the artist behind the graffiti, who goes by the name AINAC (Art Is Not A Crime), resurfaced at an South Slope gallery last year.
At least those portraits had some artistic coherency. The crude anti-“commie” messages being scrawled around Sheepshead Bay look like the work of a lunatic or buffoon, instead of an angsty punk.
Kalayci said she hopes her photos will help locate the vandal.
“I’m hoping someone knows him. I’m more curious than anything else. I’ve always wondered who did it and why,” she said.