CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Police in Concord, New Hampshire, say someone used lighter fluid to form a swastika in the parking lot near the office of a human rights group that battles anti-Semitism.
The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice was named for Congressman Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress. He died in 2008.
Police said the 6-by-6-foot swastika, discovered Wednesday, was never lighted, and the person who formed the symbol walked away. A witness described that person as 5-foot-10 man possibly in his teens or 20s and wearing some type of hooded sweatshirt.
Katrina Swett, Lantos’ daughter, runs the foundation. She said it is a place where when anyone is targeted, it stands shoulder to shoulder and pushes back against it.
Lt. Timothy O’Malley, commander of the criminal investigation division of the Concord Police Department, said Thursday there’s more than one business in the building and that police are trying to find out if the act was targeted or random.
“We’re aware that it’s a sensitive issue in Concord,” he said, recalling the case of racist graffiti written on the homes of four African refugee families in the city in 2011 and 2012. Raymond Stevens of Pembroke is facing charges in the case.
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