MARBLEHEAD — Police are investigating another anti-Semitic incident in town.
A swastika, the emblem of the Nazi party, was found drawn in the dirt of the softball field at Marblehead High School on Monday morning. A woman was walking her dog when she saw the graffiti on the field, and alerted police shortly after 10:30 a.m., according to Marblehead Police.
“We think it hadn’t been there very long,” said Police Chief Robert Picariello. “It was removed immediately.”
Picariello said the symbol wasn’t easy to see unless someone was at the correct angle, and police think it had only been there for a few hours. A different graphic image was also drawn into the dirt.
The swastika was found a little over a month after town residents and officials rallied at Riverhead Beach to protest a rash of anti-Semitic graffiti discovered on a harbor causeway wall off Ocean Avenue.
On Friday, June 30, the Fourth of July weekend, police found the graffiti, which the department said consisted of racially offensive, anti-Semitic and extremely disturbing language. It ran over a large portion of the wall. Similarly offensive graffiti was discovered in a remote section of Seaside Park.
Town Administrator John McGinn said he and the town condemn Monday’s incident at the high school, as it has done in the past with similar anti-Semitic occurrences. He said it’s disappointing and the police are investigating the incident, which was also immediately reported to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the local task force against discrimination.
McGinn said it’s discouraging that incidents such as Monday’s happen. Although the graffiti found over the July 4 weekend was of a greater magnitude than this situation, it doesn’t make this one right or acceptable in any way, shape or manner, he added.
“The hope is we can find the people that are responsible for doing it,” McGinn said. “It’s just very sad that this type of thing does happen. Whoever does this type of thing, they do it under the cover of darkness. They’re cowards. It’s difficult to find them when there’s no evidence to sort of link things together.”
Talia Ben Sasson-Gordis, ADL associate regional director, said the ADL condemns the incident, and has been in touch with the police who responded quickly and are taking the occurrence seriously.
Sasson-Gordis said the ADL has been in Marblehead High School lately for its Anti-Bias Education Program. In light of anti-Semitic incidents in Marblehead, the ADL partnered with the school in 2016 to implement the program.
“I think it (Monday’s incident) actually stressed the importance of teaching kids about bias and how to combat hate, and giving them the skills to understand the issues and how to address them,” Sasson-Gordis said.
The ADL is seeing anti-Semitic occurrences all over New England, and it is certainly not a unique situation to Marblehead, Sasson-Gordis said.
Marblehead and nearby Swampscott have experienced other recent anti-Semitic acts.
Marblehead Police were called last Aug. 18 after a rock was thrown through a high school window. While investigating the vandalism, police found “Jews did 9/11” spelled out on the dirt of the school’s softball field.
Earlier in 2016, pennies in the shape of a swastika were photographed and posted on Snapchat. Swastikas were also scrawled onto the parking lot of the middle school.
In April 2016, swastikas were found chalked on a Pleasant Street sidewalk in Swampscott, and another swastika was scrawled in the parking lot of the town’s middle school.
Marblehead School Superintendent Maryann Perry could not be reached for comment.
