A trash can marked with a swastika was photographed at Santa Monica’s Crescent Bay Park this week.
The graffiti, drawn in black spray paint, was first. spotted on August 18 and has since been removed, The Sun has learned.
“We are horrified by this blatant display of hatred in a space specifically meant for families to enjoy,” Stop Antisemitism Executive Director Liora Rez told the Jewish Journal.
The paper also published the following statement from Richard S. Hirschhaut, Los Angeles Regional Director of the American Jewish Committee: “The daubing of a swastika anywhere is a cowardly and grotesque expression of antisemitism. We should never grow indifferent to such rank, hateful graffiti. The Santa Monica Police Department must treat this as more than mere defacement of public property.”
Hate crimes are not uncommon in Santa Monica.
In 2011, nearly a dozen red swastikas were found painted on homes and businesses in the affluent North of Montana Avenue neighborhood.
Last month, Melvin Taylor, a 65 year-old homeless man, was charged in connection with an attack on a Korean woman.
Statewide the number of reported hate crimes surged more than 30 percent in 2020.
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