Police are investigating a flurry of swastika vandalism over the weekend in three major US cities.
Chicago Police released a surveillance video Saturday that shows a man smashing the front window of a synagogue and placing swastikas on the front door.
In the video, the suspect pulls up to the synagogue curb in a dark-colored SUV just after midnight, places the stickers on the front door and then breaks the glass with a metal object. He then gets back in the car and flees the scene.
The man is wearing dark clothing and a dark head mask, police said.
The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.
“The Chicago Jewish community will not be intimidated by anti-Semitic attacks on a house of worship,” American Jewish Committee Director Amy Stoken said in a statement to CNN.
‘I have had it with this behavior’
In Houston, campus police at Rice University are investigating the swastika vandalism of the school’s William Marsh Rice statue.
The university reported that a swastika was drawn on the base of the iconic statue in the academic quad Friday night. The vandalism also included unidentified “words,” according to a Rice statement sent to CNN.
“I have had it with this behavior … We are smarter, we are resolute and we outnumber the hatemongers by far,” Dean John Hutchinson said in the statement.
‘We will not let hate win’
And in New York City, passengers encountered swastikas and Nazi slogans scrawled on a subway train car Saturday night.
One rider, Gregory Locke, documented the hateful graffiti — and passengers’ efforts to remove it — in a Facebook post that went viral.
It even caught the attention of former first daughter Chelsea Clinton, who tweeted about it.
“We will not let hate win,” Clinton said.
One person on the train suggested using hand sanitizer to erase the swastikas, Locke said in his post. So passengers banded together and erased the graffiti in a matter of minutes.
