Police are investigating after a man was reported to have left feces and yelled anti-semitic remarks towards a rabbi outside of a synagogue in Florida, WSVN reported on Saturday.
Cellphone video captured the suspect, barefoot and screaming on an electric bicycle towards a rabbi at the Chabad of South Broward Synagogue in Hallandale Beach, Fla.
Hallandale Beach Police Capt. Ra Shana Dabney-Donovan said the suspect also emptied a bag of feces at the synagogue and returned later to spit at the menorah near the building, according to the Fox-affiliate report.
An unidentified woman told the Fox-affiliate that she witnessed the suspect while picking her daughter from the synagogue and followed him after he dumped the feces.
“We are always going to be here. We’re never going to leave, and we are always going to be courageous for the people who have died in our families before it,” the unidentified woman told WSVN.
A separate incident at the same synagogue in May involved a man who reported rocks being thrown at him when leaving the building, police said.
Hallandale Beach Commissioner Anabelle Lima-Taub told WSVN that she proposed a hate crime task force to combat the recent string of crimes.
“It seems that every time there is an uprising, or a situation globally or nationally, easily identifiable members of our religious community, specifically the Orthodox Jewish community, are a target,” Taub said.