Marin County: Swastika stickers may lead to hate crime charges

Marin County authorities are deciding whether to file hatecrime charges against a Livermore man who was captured on video putting swastika stickers on public and private property in Fairfax, police said Wednesday.

Fairfax resident Noah Mohan, 21, was walking his puppy with his girlfriend in Fairfax shortly before 3:45 p.m. Monday when he noticed a man across the street placing swastika stickers around town with the phrase, “We are everywhere.”

Mohan filmed the subsequent exchange and posted a shortened version on Instagram. In the video, Mohan ripped the sticker off a post and walked over to the man, asking him, “Why are you putting up Nazi stickers?”

The man responded that he believes in the ideology.

Mohan told the man not to put up the stickers in the neighborhood, and said that his ideology was not welcome in Fairfax. At some point, as more people gathered to confront the man, someone called police.

Fairfax police Lt. Rico Tabaranza said the man is a Livermore resident and has not been arrested or cited. But after an investigation and followup conversations with witnesses, “We are in contact with and collaborating with the District Attorney’s Office for pending charges, which some are haterelated crimes.”

Officers said they found swastika stickers on a Black Lives Matter sign at Peri’s Bar, which is private property.

“I can tell you that we have several crimes being requested for charges at the D.A.’s office,” Tabaranza said. “Some of those are related to haterelated crimes. And some are not, like vandalism. It just has to meet a certain criteria, and it’s up to the D.A.’s office to determine whether or not its chargeable.”

District attorney’s officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening.

Mohan told The Chronicle he filmed the man and pressed him to leave because he did not want him in his hometown. Mohan followed the man through the downtown area and stopped near a parking lot, where the man said he was parked.

“If you stop filming me, I will leave right now,” the man could be heard saying. “I gotta go home.”

Mohan told him repeatedly to leave the city, and the man repeatedly said that he would drive away and leave if Mohan stopped filming. He continued filming until police arrived a few minutes later.

“A swastika is literally just representing killing off a race of people that’s part of my family,” Mohan told The Chronicle, referring to Jewish family members. “There is no world that I’m going to take that lightly, whether or not it’s a KKK sticker, (or) any kind of discrimination.”

Mohan could be heard in the video telling his girlfriend to leave the area after noticing a pocket knife clipped to the man’s pant pocket. He said that while the man did not point it at anyone during the confrontation, Mohan feared for her safety because she is Black and Filipina.

Over the course of the almost 10minute video, the man repeats that the stickers represent his “ideologies.” When asked by another man whether he is aware of what the Nazi ideology is, he responds that, “Yes, I do.”

He went on to falsely say that the Auschwitz concentration camp was not real. Mohan said the man was wearing sunglasses with “SS” insignia.

Tabaranza said the knife the man was carrying was removed immediately as a safety precaution. It was a “legal folding pocket knife that anyone can carry,” Tabaranza said, noting that the knife was not brandished in a threatening manner during the confrontation.

In the man’s questioning by police, Tabaranza said, he reiterated his “ideology” to officers.

“He did admit to the fact that he was posting these stickers. We got pretty much his statement, his ideology of why he was spreading this type of propaganda in our town,” Tabaranza said.

He urged Fairfax residents to call police if they see anyone posting “hatefilled propaganda” and to “try not to intercede by confronting people, because we definitely don’t want a physical altercation.”

“As an officer in this town, I’ve been here for 11 years, I haven’t seen anything close to this,” Tabaranza said. “It’s disheartening. There is no room for this type of hate in this community.”