Stills from the synagogue surveillance feed.
Cops have a new lead in the hunt for Westville’s phallic avenger.
They have obtained surveillance video showing a man urinating outside the rear entrance to a neighborhood synagogue, then spray-painting the video camera.
Police believe this may be the same vandal who has been spraying the word “penis” and graphic representations on walls and utility boxes throughout the neighborhood for the past five months.
The city’s anti-blight agency, the Livable City Initiative (LCI), has been cleaning up the graffiti as soon as neighbors report it. LCI and police are looking for the perpetrator, as first reported in this New Haven Independent story.
The surveillance video shows the spraypaint-wielding intruder at 12:45 a.m. Monday at Congregation Beth-El Keser Israel at Whalley Avenue and Harrison Street in the parking-lot entrance spraying the wall, then spraying the camera.
The same overnight, a new spate of penis graffiti appeared on six spots on surrounding blocks, including a traffic-control box by the Whalley-Harrison corner, said top Westville cop Sgt. Renee Dominguez.
“The video’s really good,” Dominguez said Friday. So she encouraged anyone who recognizes the figure in the video or has other information to leave a message at her at (203) 946‑7560.
LCI’s Evan Trachten at one of the crime scenes.
Crime scene on Whalley.