Hate words written at rep’s office
Messages traced in dust outside door
LIMERICK >> Police patrols will be stepped up in the area of the Park Towne Plaza shopping center after racist, antisemitic and homophobic messages were found outside state Rep. Joe Ciresi’s office there.
The messages, which were written in dust accumulated on glass in a breezeway window opposite Ciresi’s office, included a swastika, references to the KKK, a racial slur, a homophobic slur and a Star of David, along with the words “Anne Frank.”
Frank is a Jewish teen who famously wrote a diary chronicling
her family’s efforts to hide out from Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II before being discovered.
(Medianews Group withheld some photos of the messages due to their offensive nature.)
Limerick Police Lieutenant Robert Matalavage declined to call the messages and symbols “graffiti” and described it as “an isolated incident. We have had no reports of anything like this anywhere else in the township.”
He said he did not think Ciresi or anyone else was “targeted,” and so is disinclined to believe the messages constitute a “hate crime.”
“If it was spray-painted, I would say it was more of a targeting-type situation. It’s probably some kids with idle time on their hands who decided to do something ignorant,” Matalavage said.
“If we get more information, we would definitely pursue those leads,” he said, declining to further comment on the state of the investigation.
“But we will be adding extra patrols in that area to make sure no one is loitering in that breezeway,” Matalavage said.
Ciresi, D-146th Dist., whose office contacted the managers of the property and asked that the writing be cleaned up, said the messages were disturbing.
“Hate has no place anywhere, and we will not stand for this,” Ciresi said.
“We must educate everyone we can about what this means, about what hate can do,” he said. “People think there is no hate here, but it is everywhere.”
The discovery of the messages comes almost exactly one year after the Spring-Ford School Board decided that Intermediate School teacher Kevin Bean had not violated any rules when he portrayed a German who shouted “sieg heil” and gave a Nazi salute while moonlighting as a professional wrestler.
In the wake of that decision, some parents turned out a school board meeting to defend Bean and argue he was playing a character, a “wrestling heel,” and was a kind person and supportive teacher.
Others said whatever his motives, Bean had set a bad example and that his actions upset some minority students and families. The Park Towne Plaza shopping center is located less than a half-mile from Spring-Ford’s Brooke Elementary School.
“It’s probably some kids with idle time on their hands who decided to do something ignorant.”
— Limerick Police Lt. Robert Matalavage