The NYPD on Wednesday named and released footage of the suspect wanted for torching 11 police vehicles in a Brooklyn parking lot just down the street from a stationhouse.
Jakhi Lodgson-McCray, 21, was caught on video in a bodega near the scene of the June 12 arson, according to cops. He carried the equipment he allegedly used in the arson in a reusable shopping bag, surveillance video shows.
“There is zero tolerance for anyone who attacks the NYPD,” the NYPD said on X as they posted a prior mugshot of Lodgson-McCray and asked the ,public’s help tracking him down now.
The suspect has ongoing cases for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and assault in both Manhattan and Queens stemming from arrests last months. In both times he was released without bail.
Last year, he was arrested for joining two accomplices to set fire to a flag outside the Israeli consulate in Midtown. The case was adjudicated but the outcome was not immediately known Wednesday.
He’s now accused of torching nearly a dozen police cruisers at the lot near the 83rd Precinct stationhouse on Knickerbocker Ave. and Bleecker St. in Bushwick about 1:30 a.m.
Later that day, Mayor Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch decried the brazen act of vandalism, which the mayor tied to anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles.
“This is unacceptable,” Adams said. “We have stated over and over again, everyone has a right to peaceful protest. You do not have a right to destroy property of the City of New York. We have reasons to believe the person who participated in this act is connected to some of the protests that’s taking place in Los Angeles and throughout the entire country.”
The FDNY managed to put out the blaze within a few minutes but the vehicles were all heavily damaged or destroyed.
Tisch said last week that surveillance footage showed a masked arsonist entering the lot after hopping a fence around 12:40 a.m.
Around 40 minutes later, an officer from the 83rd Precinct caught the perpetrator in the act.
The officer “interrupted the perpetrator as he was setting fire to a number of vehicles, at which point the perpetrator threw a piece of plywood and fled through an alleyway,” Tisch said.
Investigators believe the vandal poured gasoline on the police cars before setting them on fire.
