Swastika spray-painted in market across from West Hempstead JCC

    A well-known supermarket on Dogwood Avenue on the border of West Hempstead and Franklin Square was the scene of vandalism early last week, when two teenagers painted a swastika on a bathroom stall with black spray paint.
    The Best Yet supermarket, in a shopping center at 696 Dogwood Ave., is a favorite of local residents and serves much of Franklin Square, West Hempstead and Elmont. On March 30, two teenagers walked in and asked the customer service manager if they could use the bathroom on the store’s second floor.
    According to night manager Josh Miller, when an employee went upstairs to check on the two, he smelled a familiar chemical odor coming from the bathroom and saw the two teens walking away quickly. “He saw the two kids coming down the stairs and he smelled the spray paint,” Miller said. “Then he could see through the door that they had painted a swastika on the bathroom stall, on the outside.”
    Miller, a three-year employee at the store, said that his co-worker shouted down the stairs for someone to stop the alleged vandals, and he immediately ran out the store’s front doors and went after them. Miller and the store’s customer service manager chased the two teenagers, who took off running down Dogwood Avenue. Miller caught one of them, a 15-year-old whose name has not been released by police.
    Detectives said that the boy had several cans of spray paint in his possession when he was arrested.
    Miller said the teenager didn’t say much of anything after he caught up with him, other than some quick denials that he had done anything wrong  — which quickly evaporated once the police arrived.
    According to detectives with the 5th Precinct, the second suspect, 17-year-old Walter Canteel of Franklin Square, was arrested a short time later at his home.