Investigators in Riverside County are combing through surveillance footage after someone sprayed shaving cream in the shape of a swastika on the hood of a van owned by an African American business owner.
The incident happened May 30 in the 38000 block of Innovation Court. Investigators with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said it appears to be a hate crime.
Employee Phyllis Cook spotted the swastika, a symbol associated with Nazism that has come to represent hatred of non-whites, about 9 a.m. as she walked into work at Transit Van Shuttle Services.
The owner of the shuttle service, Kenneth Larkin, called the discovery (pictured below) “gut wrenching” and “shocking.”
“I don’t think it was random,” said Larkin, who is black. “I believe it was specially targeted to our business.”
Larkin and his wife, Rosemary, have lived in Temecula for 25 years and have never experienced anything like this before, at least not in this area.
The couple is familiar with racism. During the 1960s, Kenneth Larkin marched with Dr. Martin Luther King. Rosemary Larkin grew up in segregated Alabama.
"We couldn't drink from the water fountains. They said white only,” she recalled. “We couldn't change clothes in a store. We couldn't try on the clothing."
The Larkins and their employees fear this symbol of hate scrawled on their van could be just the beginning.
Local
Get Los Angeles's latest local news on crime, entertainment, weather, schools, COVID, cost of living and more. Here's your go-to source for today's LA news.
"The idea of a swastika – what's next? A cross burning?” Kenneth Larkin said.
Investigators collected surveillance video and a shaving cream can as evidence.
Rosemary Larkin said she’s hoping for a quick arrest.
“Nobody runs me away,” she said. “No one takes what I worked hard for.”
Anyone with information about this case is urged to call the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
