Neo-nazis are posting stickers in Forest Hills and Rego Park

Stickers from white supremacist group Patriot Front have been cropping up along 108th Street in Forest Hills. Photo via Google Maps

By Rachel Vick

Stickers promoting a neo-Nazi group have begun appearing on lampposts and poles throughout Forest Hills and Rego Park in recent weeks, and one local resident says he caught two white supremacist vandals in the act.

Forest Hills college student Ari Sverdlov took photos of two boys on bikes placing stickers from the group Patriot Front along 108th Street on Sunday. Sverdlov said he encountered the two boys posting the stickers on poles when he went outside to take down Patriot Front decals he spotted earlier in the day.

“He had placed it right over the face of a rabbi on a poster,” Sverdlov wrote on Facebook, along with photos of one of the alleged vandals. “I’m not really sure what to do about it, didn’t get to do much in the moment. He and an even younger kid were together, both on bikes.”

Patriot Front is a white supremacist group that branched off from another white nationalist group following the fascist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, according to the Anti-Defamation League database. The group has made their presence known in Bay Ridge and Park Slope, Brooklyn as well as parts of Upstate New York.

The 112th Precinct, which polices Forest Hills and Rego Park, did not respond to questions about the white nationalist vandalism.

A white supremacist sticker appears on this post on 108th street. Ari Sverdlov

A spokesperson for the Queens District Attorney’s Office said they were not aware of the vandalism but could not investigate unless an actual crime had been committed. The DA’s Office recently announced the creation of a Hate Crimes Bureau to combat a dramatic spike in bias crimes, particularly anti-Semitic offenses.

This is not the first time that young people have been accused of spreading hate symbols in the area.

After a 12-year-old boy was arrested for allegedly drawing swastikas and anti-Semitic messages at a Rego Park schoolyard last year, some local Jewish leaders said the episode could serve as an opportunity for restorative justice and anti-prejudice education.

“I’m deeply concerned about anti -Semitism and how it is being revealed in our communities, and I really see this as an opportunity for restorative justice,” said Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg, co-chair of the Rabbinic Council of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, or JFREJ, at the time. “It’s an opportunity for the community to work together to build trust in each other and our relationships.”