Man Charged With Vandalizing L.A. Synagogue
The man arrested in connection with fake bomb threats made against a Los Angeles synagogue was also charged with vandalizing it earlier this month.
Several bomb threats against the Wilshire Boulevard Temple were called in to the Los Angeles Police Department Tuesday morning. One call said that there was a bomb planted in a car at an intersection near the synagogue.
Police investigated the threats and blew up a suspicious package left in a car adjacent to the synagogue, but the package was found not to contain explosives.
Wan Ryung Song, also known as Patrick Song, 46, was arrested later on Tuesday. Song is a naturalized U.S. citizen from South Korea.
Song was charged with four counts of making a bomb threat, one count of vandalism at a house of worship and one count of a hate crime, according to the LA Times. His arrest was based largely on video footage from the synagogue’s surveillance cameras. He reportedly made all the bomb threat calls to police from the same pay phone located near the synagogue.
The synagogue, known as the oldest in Los Angeles, was vandalized on Dec. 6 with a swastika and anti-Semitic graffiti.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
