See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.
By Will Bredderman
Brooklyn Daily
Talk about a rude awakening!
A Bensonhurst couple say they awoke on Oct. 15 to find somebody had torched their garbage can and urinated on their car — an act they believe was a personal attack, though they can’t figure out the motive or who was behind it.
Howard Weiss said his wife left their home on 85th Street between 22nd Avenue and Bay Parkway for work around 8:30 am and noticed that the trash can in front of their home was burnt and blackened.
At first, neither of them suspected foul play.
“I assumed, you know, somebody had just thrown a cigarette away and it had caught on fire,” Weiss said.
But out of curiosity the pair decided to watch their neighbor’s security tape from the night before — and they noticed something very unusual.
The video shows an individual, who Weiss believes to be a woman, approach their home, set their garbage can on fire — then walk across the street to their car, drop trou, and squat above the hood on the driver’s side.
“We saw them go to the car and we knew it was definitely personal,” said Weiss, who does not recognize culprit and knows of no one holding a vendetta against him, his wife, the garbage can, or the car. “How else would they have known it was my car?”
The film shows the perp apparently trying to tamp out the blazing bin with a milk crate, failing, then walking back the same way the arsonist came. The camera captures the can continuing to burn for twenty minutes before fire trucks and police arrived to extinguish it.
A Fire Department spokesman confirmed that the agency is investigating the case, but police and District Attorney’s office could not be reached for comment by deadline
Weiss just wants answers.
“It’s a serious crime and I would like to get to the bottom of why I was targeted,” said Weiss, who suffered just $25 in damages but decided to drop more than $600 on a new security system.
Reach reporter Will Bredderman at (718) 260–4507 or e-mail him at wbredderman@cnglocal.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/WillBredderman