Police Nab Another 11-Year-Old After School Bus Set On Fire In Brooklyn
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Police arrested a second 11-year-old boy Thursday after a school bus was set on fire in front of a Jewish school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
The whole incident was caught on surveillance video this past weekend.
On Monday, police arrested another 11-year-old boy who they believe was the mastermind of the incident. He is facing arson and criminal mischief charges, both as a hate crime, for allegedly torching the empty Yeshiva school bus.
The second suspect was picked up Thursday afternoon, CBS2's Brian Conybeare reported. Both cases are being handled in Family Court due to the boys' age.
The bus was set ablaze around 6 p.m. Sunday after the driver dropped off a group of students at the Bnos Orthodox Jewish School for Girls on Brooklyn Avenue.
Investigators said a group of boys between the ages of 11 and 15 were caught on surveillance video stepping onto the unlocked, empty school bus with cardboard. Shortly after, flames appear in one of the windows and then a second fire starts near the driver's seat.
The boys ran away just as smoke and flames started to engulf the bus. The video shows one of them coming back on a bike and taking a picture.
Four other suspects are still being sought.
"Clearly, it was a religious school bus. Anybody in that community knows that. That this was a private yellow bus used for a religious school nearby, so that was what was our feeling with that," NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said Tuesday. "Clearly it was a religious school bus. Clearly it's an attack on the school itself."
The burned out bus has been towed away from the scene on Brooklyn Avenue now that the investigation is over.
Police on Thursday were still looking for four more suspects. Sources said Thursday that a 13-year-old boy arrested last week in a separate random attack on a Hasidic man in Crown Heights is not connected to the school bus arson.
Around the Crown Heights neighborhood, the NYPD posted signs offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to the arrest of the rest of the suspects.
Meanwhile, police said the group could be linked to an incident seven blocks from the site of the bus fire.
Last Thursday, someone threw a brick at a Yeshiva school bus as it drove down Eastern Parkway, shattering its mirror, according to police. There were no kids on the bus when it happened.
