Two young men were arrested for tearing down posters of hostages kidnapped in the Israel-Hamas war that were hung up outside a private property in Gramercy Park, police said Thursday.
Charlotte Wimer, who uses he/him pronouns, and Gray Segal, both 18, were arrested just after 5 p.m. Wednesday after they were caught ripping down posters of Israeli children and adults kidnapped by the terrorist group on display outside 201 East 23rd Street, cops said.
Both Wimer and Segal, who live on the Lower East Side, were charged with criminal mischief, police said.
Video taken moments after the incident and shared on X shows the two men in handcuffs standing in front of the disheveled wall of posters.
Before the incident, the wall of the privately-owned building had been completely covered in red and white signs with the word “KIDNAPPED” written in all caps above photographs of missing hostages, as well as posters of the Israeli flag.
Photo taken Thursday afternoon and shared under the initial video on X showed that new posters had been put up in place of the ones that were callously torn down.
Posters drawing attention to the 240 people who were taken hostage by Hamas during the terror group’s Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel have been plastered all across the Big Apple as a way to draw attention to their plight.
Over the past month, countless individuals have been filmed across the five boroughs tearing down or vandalizing the hostage posters — a disturbing trend that has been blasted by city leaders as antisemitic and inhumane.
Among the offenders were an NYU student who lost her job offer over the scandal, a Brooklyn man who was arrested after getting into a caught-on-video scuffle with people trying to stop him from ripping down posters on the Upper East Side and a public defender who got to keep her job after apologizing for her brazen actions.
At least 1,400 people, most of them civilians, were killed by Hamas during its sudden assault on Israel.
Ever since, Israel has heightened its assault on Gaza, where 10,569 people have now been killed, of which 40% were children, according to Hamas-run health officials.
