Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Staten Island ‘Kyke’ Vandal Admits Targeting Jewish Neighbors

(JTA) — The man who painted a swastika and an anti-Semitic slur on a Staten Island garage door told police that he knew the family who lived there was Jewish “because of the way they spoke.”

James Rizzo, 37, was arrested on Thursday and arraigned on Friday, four days after he vandalized his neighbor’s house in Staten Island with the large swastika and the misspelled slur “Kyke.”

Rizzo lives several houses away and was seen on surveillance camera footage vandalizing the Calabrese family’s white garage door with black paint.

Prosecutors at his arraignment said Rizzo, who has a criminal record, admitted that he committed the crime, DNAinfo reported. He is charged with two counts of criminal mischief as a hate crime and aggravated harassment. He is being held on $10,000 bail. Rizzo’s lawyer that he has mental health issues but refused a psychological examination.

Debra Calabrese, who has lived in the house for 14 years, originally told local media that she did not plan to paint over the graffiti, because she wanted people to see it, despite urging by police to cover it up once their investigation was completed.

Following Rizzo’s arrest, a special clean-up team arrived at the home to power wash and repaint the garage door, at the behest of local city councilmen.

Working with our partners to erase the signs of hate……more good news to follow #Wheretoturn #CleanTeam pic.twitter.com/HZZQyYj73o

— NYPD 123rd Precinct (@NYPD123Pct) October 19, 2017

A message from our CEO & publisher 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 during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.