Swastikas, racial slurs on East Arlington buildings investigated as hate crime

Swastikas and anti-black racial slurs written in spray paint were spotted on a vacant building and nearby car wash in East Arlington on Tuesday morning, and police are investigating the instances of graffiti as one hate crime.

Police weren’t disclosing the content of the racial slurs, according to Jesse Minton, an Arlington police public information officer. Detectives are seeking the culprit or culprits behind the hateful words and symbols.

The first incident of racist graffiti was reported at 2:58 a.m. Tuesday on the outside of a vacant building in the 1800 block of East Arkansas Lane, Minton said. Around 7:50 a.m., he said, police received another report of racist graffiti visible on the outside of a car wash less than a mile away in the 1900 block of East Arkansas Lane.

There’s a small restaurant attached to the car wash that was also covered in graffiti, he said.

The content and look of the graffiti on the two separate buildings matched, Minton said. Police took photos of the two buildings for the investigation and began scrubbing away the black spray paint.

Arlington Chief Will Johnson tweeted Tuesday morning, “We will not tolerate hate crimes.”

“We will vigorously investigate and seek criminal prosecution,” he said in the tweet. “Arlington stands for the protection of all people.”

Reacting to the incident, Minton said he thought Johnson “covered it very well.”

As of around 11:30 a.m., the graffiti had been removed from the vacant building and officers were still working on cleaning the walls of the car wash, he said.

The investigation into the graffiti is ongoing.

This story was originally published August 27, 2019 at 12:25 PM.