Despite urgings from Calgary’s Jewish community to view the recent vandalism of a Holocaust memorial and two Jewish facilities as hate crimes Calgary police are leery to label them as such.
On Sunday the Calgary Jewish Centre, a Woodbine Jewish facility, as well as a number of fences, signs at a number of synagogues and a private residence were spray painted with anti-Semitic slogans and signs.
“What we have to do is get to the heart of what happened, interview who did this act and find out if it’s really in their heart,” said Insp. Richard Hinse from District 6, where the incidents happened.
“This could be kids, who have no hate in their heart, who have done something like this, or it could be a group that does.”
Investigators have retrieved surveillance from the local area which shows a single suspect spray-painting walls and are working on identifying the person in the video.
“There could easily be other suspects involved in this,” Hinse warns.
“It looks like a hate crime, the targeting of one specific group, but it really is an attack on our entire community,” said Supt. John McReynolds from the police diversity unit.
McReynolds said labelling something as a hate crime is done by the attorney general who takes into consideration all the evidence in the case a Crown prosecutor presents.
All the graffiti was cleaned up by Calgary bylaw officers.
