Law enforcement in Anchorage, Alaska are asking the public to help identify a man caught on camera defacing the Alaska Jewish Museum and a popular Anchorage gay bar with Nazi iconography earlier this week.
According to the Associated Press, security cameras at the Alaska Jewish Museum caught a tall, thin man, believed to be in his late 20s or 30s, wearing a hood and mask placing stickers bearing the swastika and the phrase “We are everywhere” on the building's door and windows around 2am Tuesday morning. The man was recording leaving the museum on a motorized scooter. The same sticker was placed on the main entrance to Anchorage gay bar Mad Myrna's roughly 45 minutes later.
Rabbi Yosef Greenberg, who serves as president of the museum's board of directors, labeled the offender a coward. “Jewish people have 4,000 years' experience of persecution,” said Greenberg. “He is dealing with the wrong people … we are not the people that fear.”
The locations chosen by the masked man fall in line with the Nazi party's targeting and mass murder of both Jewish and LGBTQ communities during the Holocaust.
“There is no place for hate in Anchorage, and we will not tolerate or ignore threats to our friends, families, and neighbors,” said Anchorage Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson, the city's first woman and out LGBTQ person to hold the office.
“Swastikas have also become a symbol of white supremacy and the far right, and actions like this disproportionately impact people of color in the LGBTQ community,” said Laura Carpenter, executive director of Alaska LGBTQ advocacy group Identity Inc. “This is just another example of people trying to demonize the LGBT community and Jewish people.”
Anchorage police are investigating the incident and Anchorage FBI office has been in contact with the department. “What that sticker symbolizes is hate and we're not going to stand for it,” Anchorage police spokesperson MJ Thim told the Associated Press. “There's no place for it. And we're going to investigate it and figure out what this is all about.”
Alaska previously on Towleroad
Screenshot of photo courtesy of Anchorage Daily News/APD
