By Rachel Holliday Smith – DNAInfo
The NYPD is still looking for a man who torched a “mitzvah bus” used in a popular Jewish pride music video in Crown Heights.
The police department is asking the public for help identifying the suspect in surveillance footage released on Thursday, the second such video released to the public by the NYPD.
The man pictured in the short clip is suspected of lighting a fire on the multi-colored bus in a June 26 blaze that totaled the painted school bus used as a mobile portrait-painting studio by local artist Lev Scheiber and featured in Hasidic singer Benny Friedman’s popular song “I’m a Jew and I’m Proud.”
The fire was lit in the early morning hours on the corner of Troy Avenue and Maple Street, police said. The incident is being investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force.
Since the arson, nearly $4,000 has been raised online for Scheiber to replace the brightly colored bus, which had become highly recognizable to many in the Crown Heights Jewish community.
Anyone with information in regards to the whereabouts of the individual is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers hotline at (800) 577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, (888) 57-PISTA (74782).
Living in CH I’ve seen him. Glad I don’t know him though. I’m sure he’ll be caught very soon.