In late April, LU reported via CNN that New York City Police were looking for a man who had hurled rocks through the windows of four synagogues in the Bronx. As though the anti-Semitic nature of the hate crime were not obvious enough, the suspect destroyed prayer books to leave no doubt.
On Saturday NYPD officers police arrested 29-year-old Jordan Burnette of the Bronx for refusing to provide proper identification after he was stopped for riding a bicycle against the flow of traffic. Surveillance footage allegedly showed Burnette smashing a van windshield with a rock ahead of his encounter with police, CBS New York notes.
But the final nail in Burnette’s coffin was provided by a caretaker at one of the vandalized synagogues who identified the bicycle Burnette was riding when he was stopped by police as one that had been stolen from the synagogue’s shed.
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Burnette was promptly taken into custody. On Sunday night, he was arraigned by Bronx Criminal Court Judge Louis Nock, who charged him with burglary as a hate crime and criminal trespass as a hate crime. The judge ordered that Burnette be held on $20,000 bail.
But the story doesn’t end there. As New York’s Daily News notes, another Bronx Criminal Court Judge, Tara Collins, did a 180 and ordered Burnette released without bail.
“Burnette’s lawyer asked for a review of the bail and Judge Collins changed to supervised release,” said Patrice O’Shaughnessy, a spokeswoman for the Bronx District Attorney’s office.
Burnette is due back in court May 7. Anyone care to give odds on whether he’ll show? (RELATED: Report shows bail reform increases crime, though it ignores its own logic to claim the reverse)
