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 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
