Boy, 11, charged with hate crime, others sought in NYC bus fire
NEW YORK - Surveillance video shows a group of New York City youths rushing onto an empty school bus and appearing to light strips of cardboard on fire inside the bus before rushing out Sunday evening, reports CBS New York.
A short time after, huge flames and thick black smoke poured out of the school bus, which was parked outside the Bnos Chomesh Academy, an orthodox Jewish school for girls in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section.
One 11-year-old was charged with criminal mischief as a hate crime and arson as a hate crime, reports the New York Daily News. Police are searching for at least four other boys, all believed to be between the ages of 11 and 14.
Binyomin Lifshitz is a neighborhood watch volunteer whose team helped police find the boy.
"The age of these kids, they're young children. Where are they getting this from? What's teaching them to do such things?" Lifshitz asked.
Chaya Cohen, who lives nearby, expressed relief that no one was injured.
"I'm just glad the kids were not on the bus at the time, and that they're safe," Cohen said, adding that her 8-year-old son was on the bus earlier Sunday.
On Monday, police collected evidence from what little was left of the vehicle's charred shell, and looking into the possibility that the incident was a hate crime.
It is not clear if Sunday's incident is related to another incident that occurred last week, when children believed to be in the same age range, allegedly threw a rock or brick at a school bus.