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200 Cemetery Headstones Toppled In Brooklyn

NEW YORK (CBS 2/AP) -- Police are investigating the vandalism of 200 headstones at a Jewish cemetery in Brooklyn.

Police say the toppled headstones were found at the Washington Cemetery in the Borough Park section on Sunday morning as grounds keepers showed up for work.

"Headstones were apparently pushed down and some of them cracked," cemetery manager Marisa Tarantino told CBS 2's John Slattery.

According to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, this was the second large-scale desecration of the cemetery in the last three weeks.

"We had a similar incident happen on November 30th in that same cemetery -- about a 100 tombstones turned over. This has been deemed as a possible bias incident," Kelly said.

"It could be kids just unfortunately messing around, which is terrible. It's terrible," Tarantino said.

The cemetery has no security cameras. Police are hoping neighborhood cameras might yield some clues as family members of those buried call in to the cemetery.

"The community is upset. We're getting calls. People are coming to visit.  They're crying, we're trying to console them as best as possible," Tarantino said.

Police say there have been no arrests.

(TM and Copyright 2010 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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