A hot yoga studio in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn was broken into last week in what police are calling a hate crime, after a man vandalized the common area, stole a few items and drew a swastika on the chalkboard.
Cops said a suspect entered Yoga Hell on East 17th Street and Avenue Z on July 18 through the unlocked front door sometime after 11:30 a.m., when the studio usually closes for the afternoon.
Although the front door has a code, police said the man came in after someone else left. He then found his way to the fourth floor studio, where he wreaked havoc in the common area: removing the studio’s mezuzah — a traditional Jewish door marker that contains verses from the Torah on a parchment scroll inside — ransacking the cubbies, throwing soap all over the bathroom floor, and unplugging the washer and dryer.
He then drew a swastika on the chalkboard with the message “Nazi Punx F**k Off,” according to photos shared by Katia Riva, the owner.
Riva said she was out of the studio dealing with a family emergency when her staff let her know about the incident.
“At first they thought it was just a mess,” she said. “As they were cleaning everything, they realized there was a swastika and somebody did it on purpose.”
A blackboard scrawled with a swastika and obscenities at the Yoga Hell studio. Police are calling it a hate crime.
Riva said she is puzzled as to why a stranger would do such a thing. She doesn’t recognize the man as any of the clients she’s had since she opened the studio in 2017.
“I’m upset, and I feel violated,” she said. “It can be anti-semitic, you can tell I’m Russian, maybe it’s that. Maybe it’s somebody who is just mentally not stable, maybe it’s kids playing with this, we just don’t know.”
As Riva and her staff worked to clean up the mess, they discovered the mezuzah on the floor, and the crucial prayer scroll inside missing. She is unsure if the suspect took anything else, but surveillance images appear to show him with a black yoga mat under his arm.
In an effort to make students continue to feel safe in the studio, Riva said she is cooperating with the police and asked the landlord to change the building’s code downstairs. She also installed her own surveillance system.
“We are trying to protect students, and we are not talking that much about that with them, because this is their place of practice and their personal transformation,” she said. “We’re waiting for some news, and we’re just hoping that’s going to help to stop any evil, if they can find who did it and figure out why.”
Riva said she generally feels safe in Sheepshead Bay, but noted that a feeling of insecurity has increased citywide since the pandemic.
Six months ago, someone stole some yoga equipment from the studio, but she said she didn’t think much of it at the time.
The suspect in the hate crime incident fled on foot on 17th Street toward Avenue Z, where police lost track of him. According to surveillance photos, he has tattoos on his arms, closely cropped blonde hair and a mustache.
