Metro

Teens with red paint on their hands caught spraying graffiti

Two mischievous teens were caught red-handed—literally—after they vandalized two civil war landmarks on the Upper West Side, police said.

Cops were on patrol Thursday night when they got a call for a couple of graffiti vandals tagging the cenotaph on Riverside Drive and West 89th Street at 3:20 a.m. at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ memorial monument, according to the NYPD.

Sgt. Nathaniel Herman and Police Officer Carmen Ledesma saw the 17-year-old Mike Kushnir and 15-year-old girl using red spray paint, according to the NYPD’s Facebook account.

“When responding to a graffiti call, the suspects are usually long gone when you get there,” Herman said. “But this time we got them, literally, red-handed,” he explained, according to a Facebook post on the NYPD’s webpage.

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Teens with red paint on their hands caught spraying graffiti
NYPD
Teens with red paint on their hands caught spraying graffiti
NYPD
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Teens with red paint on their hands caught spraying graffiti
NYPD
Teens with red paint on their hands caught spraying graffiti
NYPD
Teens with red paint on their hands caught spraying graffiti
NYPD
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Teens with red paint on their hands caught spraying graffiti
NYPD
Teens with red paint on their hands caught spraying graffiti
NYPD
Teens with red paint on their hands caught spraying graffiti
NYPD
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Teens with red paint on their hands caught spraying graffiti
NYPD
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Kushnir attempted to flee, but was apprehended at the scene with the 15-year-old girl, who was charged as a juvenile.

Both have been charged with felony criminal mischief.

Police believe the duo climbed the historic monuments, which are considered state landmarks, because the vandals’ tags were so high up.

Kushnir was also charged Tursday with defacing a city-owned lamppost on Riverside Drive and West 88th Street in May. He allegedly used a blue marker to scrawl “Trap” on the pole, according to the NYPD.

The 15-year-old girl, whose name was withheld because of her age, was slapped with the same charge for a March incident in when she tagged a mailbox with her initials, the NYPD said.

The Facebook post states arrests for such offenses are up year to date, with 1,042 through August 24th 2013, to 1,080 for the same period this year. That’s an increase of 4 percent, the statistics show.