Neighbors were rattled after someone spray-painted a swastika on an SUV in Hancock Park. Ted Chen reports for the NBC4 News at 11 on Sunday, June 5, 2016.
Neighbors in a Hancock Park neighborhood were shocked and disgusted as they gathered around an SUV Friday, discovering a spray-painted swastika on the vehicle in the predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.
But some weren't just calling it vandalism — they were calling it a hate crime.
"Living in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, it's scary," Alison Graham said.
Graham said the entire ordeal began when her husband and daughter awoke Friday to a small crowd gathered around the SUV at 124 South Mansfield at 6 a.m.
With the crudely painted swastika staring back at them, the owner of the SUV called police.
The Los Angeles Police Department's Wilshire Station officers arrived and took a police report, filing it as a hate crime, Sergeant Matt McNulty confirmed.
The victim was not Jewish, and believes the vandalism was not meant for him.
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He left the truck parked on the street the day before, and when the neighborhood woke up, there the graffiti was.
Though the victim doesn't feel personally targeted, many neighbors do.
Graham said she believes the SUV was picked, not because it could be owned by a Jewish person, but because it was the largest car parked out on the street — a billboard, almost.
"I had a visceral shock reaction," Antony Gordon, Hancock Park resident said. "Like, 'Is this Los Angeles? Is this happening, not only in our neighborhood, but on our street?'"
The LAPD was investigating who may be responsible.
