MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Police arrested two 21-year-old men Sunday suspected of damaging a synagogue under construction in southwest Miami-Dade.
According to arrest reports, just after 7 p.m., police caught Tyric Chrisdel Francois, of Homestead, and Diunte Antwan Adams, of southwest Miami-Dade, burglarizing homes under construction near the intersection of Southwest 92nd Avenue and 112th Street.
Police said the pair admitted to breaking into the Kendall-area sites to steal copper wire. Authorities also suspect Francois and Adams of breaking into the Chabad of Kendall construction site the week prior.
Rabbi Yossi Harlig told Local 10 News he woke up Tuesday to find the site’s electrical box cut and critical wiring ripped out.
The facility isn’t just being constructed as a place of worship; it’s also set to be new home for the Friendship Circle, which provides more than two dozen programs for hundreds of families with special needs children.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, the county’s first Jewish mayor, visited the site over the weekend.
“To see how quickly the community came together and (the police) were able to arrest these people gives us a lot of confidence,” Harlig told Local 10 News on Monday.
Harlig started a GoFundMe page to help the synagogue pay for the cost of damages, which are believed to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Police said they don’t believe the break-in was a hate crime.
Harlig encouraged the suspects to “impact people’s lives on the positive” in the future.