Police have arrested a man they say vandalized a menorah outside the downtown office of Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Dariel Fernandez.

The act, caught on surveillance video, has been condemned by local and international leaders as a hate-fueled attack on religious expression.

In the video, viewable below, the suspect can be seen walking up to the menorah and throwing it to the ground, resulting in several of the bulbs that represent candles to break off the Hannukah candelabrum, which appears to be about 7 to 8 feet tall. The man then dismantles a small fence that surrounded the menorah before fleeing.

Extended footage Fernandez’s office released shows another man ride up to the fallen menorah on a motorized scooter, stand it back up and clear the blubs from the sidewalk before riding away.

According to Fernandez, the menorah had been installed just days earlier as part of his office’s first-ever Hanukkah lighting ceremony, which he said will be an annual tradition.

Fernandez said law enforcement moved quickly.

“I am grateful to law enforcement for their swift response,” he said in a statement. “The individual responsible has been identified, taken into custody, and formally charged.”

Fernandez also highlighted the benevolent actions of the bystander who intervened after the vandalism.

“One bad actor tried to destroy the menorah, but a good Samaritan from our community came back and restored it,” he said. “That is the message — the only way to fight darkness is with light.”

The menorah was repaired, re-erected and relit shortly after the arrest.

Miami-Dade Commissioner Natalie Milian Orbis called the incident more than simple property damage.

“This was not just vandalism, it was an act of hate,” she said in a statement. “It targeted a sacred symbol and the values of faith, resilience and unity that Hanukkah represents. Hate has no home in Miami-Dade County.”

International condemnation also followed. In a statement, the Consulate General of Israel in Miami said it “unequivocally condemns the vandalism of the menorah … and any act that targets Jewish symbols, faith, or community life.” The Consulate also praising local law enforcement and Fernandez for standing against antisemitism.

Police have yet to publicly identify the suspect, who is likely to face charges of criminal mischief for property damage, the punishment for which varies from misdemeanor to felony depending on the extent of the damage.

If prosecutors pursue a hate-crime enhancement, penalties could increase, potentially exposing the suspect to a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.

Medicaid programs made more than $200 million in improper payments to health care providers between 2021 and 2022 for people who had already died, according to a new report from the independent watchdog for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

But the Department’s Office of Inspector General said it expects a new provision in Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill requiring states to audit their Medicaid beneficiary lists may help reduce these improper payments in the future.

These kinds of improper payments are “not unique to one state, and the issue continues to be persistent,” Aner Sanchez, Assistant Regional Inspector General in the Office of Audit Services told The Associated Press. Sanchez has been researching this issue for a decade.

The watchdog report released Tuesday said more than $207.5 million in managed care payments were made on behalf of deceased enrollees between July 2021 to July 2022. The Office recommends that the federal government share more information with state governments to recover the incorrect payments — including a Social Security database known as the Full Death Master File, which contains more than 142 million records going back to 1899.

Sharing the Full Death Master File data has been tightly restricted due to privacy laws which protect against identity theft and fraud.

The massive tax and spending bill that was signed into law by President Donald Trump this Summer expands how the Full Death Master File can be used by mandating Medicaid agencies to quarterly audit their provider and beneficiary lists against the file, beginning in 2027. The intent is to stop payments to dead people and improve accuracy.

Tuesday’s report is the first nationwide look at improper Medicaid payments. Since 2016, HHS’ Inspector General has conducted 18 audits on a selection of state programs and had identified that Medicaid agencies had improperly made managed care payments on behalf of deceased enrollees totaling approximately $289 million.

The government had some success using the Full Death Master File to prevent improper payments earlier this year. In January, the Treasury Department reported that it had clawed back more than $31 million in federal payments that improperly went to dead people as part of a five-month pilot program after Congress gave Treasury temporary access to the file for three years as part of the 2021 appropriations bill.

Meanwhile, the SSA has been making unusual updates to the file itself, adding and removing records, and complicating its use. For instance, the Trump administration in April moved to classify thousands of living immigrants as dead and cancel their Social Security numbers to crack down on immigrants who had been temporarily allowed to live in the U.S. under programs started during the Biden administration.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.