A hooded man was caught on camera plastering hateful Swastika stickers on the Jewish museum and a gay bar in Anchorage, Alaska.
At around 2am on Tuesday morning (25 May), the unidentified man was caught on camera driving a scooter up to the Alaska Jewish Museum and pasting stickers on the door and two windows, according to the Associated Press.
Each white sticker was emblazoned with a black swastika, and the words: “We are everywhere.”
Just under an hour later, the same stickers were found on the door of Mad Myrna’s, a gay bar in downtown Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska.
In a statement calling for the public’s help in identifying the culprit, the Anchorage Police Department said: “There is no place for hate in our community. The Anchorage Police Department takes these matters seriously.
“As part of our on-going investigation, we’ve partnered with the FBI to determine any potential state and federal violations.”
The man appears to have vandalised spaces connected to groups targeted by the Nazi party, as both Jewish and gay people were murdered during the Holocaust.
Rabbi Yosef Greenberg, president of the Alaska Jewish Museum’s board of directors, said police had not deemed the incident a serious or organised threat, and branded the man who placed the stickers a “coward”.
He said: “Jewish people have 4,000 years’ experience of persecution.
“He is dealing with the wrong people. We are not the people that fear.”
Greenberg believes the man “got excited about something he read on the internet and came and put a sticker”, but added that if police catch him, it will “make a statement that the entire community is united, that such things cannot happen in this community”.
Laura Carpenter, the head of the Alaska LGBT+ organisation Identity Inc which has offices near the gay bar Mad Myrna’s, said: “Swastikas have also become a symbol of white supremacy and the far right, and actions like this disproportionately impact people of colour in the LGBT+ community… This is just another example of people trying to demonise the LGBT+ community and Jewish people.”
In a Facebook post, staff at Mad Myrna’s insisted they would “not be focusing or dwelling on the hateful sticker slapped on our door in the night”.
However, they added: “We do wish to thank everyone for the comments of love and support… We are here, we are queer and we have some damn good chicken wings on special tonight.”
