There have been a number of rumors about anti-Semitism, cover-ups and more directed at The Village of Suffern Police Department, Mayor Keegan and The Village board. 

An individual brought the subject up at the last Village Board Meeting and Mayor Keegan addressed the issue but it still won't go away.

Here is what actally happened: 

On July 6th, 2009 graffiti and vandalism was discovered in the Gazebo at Avon Park at the corner of Lafayette and Washington Avenues.  A resident called Ramapo Times and I showed up.  Mayor Keegan was already on the scene and Chief Osborn arrived a few moments later.

Some of the vertical wooden slats supporting the gazebo railing had been kicked out, the signs warning against loitering, skateboarding and vandalism had been vandalized and someone using a black Sharpie marker had displayed their ignorance for all to see.

In my opinion, and I was there, this was the work of ignorant teenagers and not the work of an anti-Semitic group. 

The No Loitering, No Skatebording, No Vandalism sign had the words 'No' Crossed out and 'Yes' written.  The portion of the sign stating that the 'Park Closes at 9:00pm' had the notation 'Who Cares' written next to it.  The vandal had also succeeded in peeling off some of the letters to form a new word.  Surprisingly, they actually managed to put together a real word and spell it correctly; this was not necessarily the case with some of the other scrawlings.

Indeed there were two small swastikas, one next to the declaration "Im rasist".  As is clearly evident,  an apostrophe was missing and 'rasist' was spelled incorrectly.  This clearly was not written by a scholar.

Apparently swastikas weren't enough, the vandal went on to declare their hatred of another prominent group but also mentioned anger toward Hitler.  Go figure.

Continuing on, visitors to the gazebo that morning learned that somebody loved somebody else, somebody was angry with someone else, somebody's phone number, somebody was fantasizing and my two personal favorites:  'ABCD was here' and "Pshh... we're not goin to Jail".   There is nothing quite like writing your name and declaring that you're not going to jail.  Jail time is probably out of the question but getting caught?  We'll address that in a moment.

Mayor Keegan spoke with Chief Osborn--apparently the Chief had already had his detectives over to take photographs and had begun their investigation.

This wasn't about anti-Semitism; this was clearly a case of anti-smartism or perhaps stupidism.  If smartism and stupidism aren't real words they should be as they accurately describe the mindset of someone who scrawls this type of garbage on public property for shock value. 

Racism in any form should not be tolerated and exposes the ignorance and lack of intelligence of the perpetrators.  Anti-Semitism or racism of any kind would have been a big story.  This situation was all about a kid or kids acting stupid and being irresponsible. 

As a result, Ramapo Times decided not to run the story.  Why publicize some kid's anti-social behavior?  In my opinion, the Mayor responded appropriately and Chief Osborn and the Suffern Police Department responded appropriately.

A few days later, The Suffern Police Department arrested a 16 year-old.   

The Department of Public Works painted over the graffiti after the Suffern Police Department's detectives had finished their work.  This wasn't a cover-up, the matter was investigated and an arrest was made, this was a simple touch up of paint and Village employees from various departments doing their jobs.