A Massachusetts teenager has been charged with vandalizing a Holocaust memorial in Boston, in what the city’s police commissioner called a “senseless and shameful” act, particularly after the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Va.
The Boston Police Department said the suspect, a 17-year-old from Malden, around six miles north of Boston, was seen on Monday night by witnesses throwing what appeared to be a rock at the New England Holocaust Memorial, an outdoor series of six 54-foot-high towers, each composed of multiple glass panels. A panel on one of the towers was shattered, the department said.
When the police arrived at the site just before 7 p.m., they arrested the teenager, who had been detained by two bystanders. He is charged with willful and malicious destruction of property, the police said. The department’s civil rights unit is investigating.
“Clearly, this type of behavior will not be tolerated in our city,” the police commissioner, William B. Evans, said in a statement. “And, in light of the recent events and unrest in Charlottesville, it’s sad to see a young person choose to engage in such senseless and shameful behavior.”
