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United States / 06-10-2012

Swastikas found spray-painted on Florida Middle School

Florida - Vandals desecrated a middle school in Florida with antisemitic graffiti, in what parents and students are calling a hate crime.

Vandals desecrated a middle school in Colllier County, Florida with antisemitic graffiti, in what parents and students are calling a hate crime  .

 

Parents saw the hateful graffiti when they went to drop off their children at school on Tuesday morning, ABC 7 news reported.

 

"There were three Nazi signs saying ‘we will burn you piece by piece,'" 8th grader Troy Pickard told the news station. "It's wrong. It's just very wrong I don't know why someone would do that."

 

Overnight vandals defaced the outside of the schools gym, using black spray paint to scrawl swastikas and antisemitic slurs.

 

"We were pretty scared at first because you know Nazis they kill, so we didn't know what to think at first," said Dylan Hall.

 

Collier officials are investigating the crime and whether the perpetrators were students or individuals with no connection to the school.

 

"We all thought it was a high schooler playing a sick joke or something but we don't know," Hall told ABC news.

 

While deputies in Collier County have yet to determine the identities of the culprits and whether the assault was intended as a hate crime, students and parents, alike, remain fearful.

 

Just one day earlier, a swastika was found spray-painted in New City, New York near the home of a prominent Jewish activist whose parents survived the Holocaust.