Cops: Man arrested for throwing brick through door of Our Lady of Fatima Church in Port Washington

A man was arrested Monday for allegedly throwing a brick a night earlier through the glass window of a door at Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church in Port Washington.

Whoever threw the brick took off before the police arrived, the Nassau County Police Department said in a news release.

Kevin Guzman, 21, of Port Washington, was arrested on Monday morning and charged with criminal mischief in connection with the incident, the release said. Guzman lives six blocks from the church, which is on Cottonwood Road.

On Tuesday afternoon, plywood covered where the glass had been in one of the church's double doors — below the steeple and between reliefs of the Annunciation and the Nativity. 

Sean Dolan, a spokesman for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, of which the church is a part, said the police discovered the vandalism to the 3-by-3-foot window before anyone affiliated with the church saw it. He said Tuesday that the window was to be repaired that day. He said the window was not religious in nature, like stained glass.

Guzman was to be arraigned Tuesday at First District Court in Hempstead. No attorney for him could be located for comment, and he was in police custody and unreachable.

The release didn't say why Guzman was the suspected vandal or how he was caught.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.