We're having a hate wave, a non-tropical hate wave.
Swastikas and German words were found spray painted Saturday morning at a Buena Park Presbyterian church that primarily serves Koreans and has reportedly been a frequent target of similar vandalism.
The day before, Coto de Caza residents faced the media to complain that the homeowner association did not move quickly enough to paint over racist and homophobic slurs left on signs at the upscale gated community.
The Buena Park Police Department was called about 7:40 a.m. Saturday about the swastikas and other markings sprayed on an outside wall at True Light Christian Church on Orangethorpe Avenue.
That prompted an investigation into a possible hate crime, according to police Sgt. Mike Lovchik.
In addition to numerous swastikas, painted in red were “mein Ehrenheit” (“my honor”), a broken heart with the words “toxic love” and other cryptic markings, reports KTLA.
Before the latest discovery, the church had already spent about $1,000 this year to clean up defacement.
The graffiti at Coto de Caza, which has the … um … distinction(?) of being home to many Real Housewives of Orange County cast members, was discovered Thursday.
Someone painted “nigger” over “Los” on a Los Ranchos Estates sign and something homophobic was left on a second sign. The Orange County Sheriff's Department is investigating it as a possible hate crime.
Coto residents who can face the homeowners association wrath for leaving trash cans out too long or other not-as-serious offenses expressed frustration that it took about a day for the graffiti to be painted over.
Informed that un-blurred images of the graffiti had been spread via Facebook, I failed in my attempts to find such a shot, although I did discover something else interesting: Up to 15 minutes before I wrote that, way, way, way more residents were still posting complaints about United Airlines moving a Coto de Caza woman from her seat in September because two Pakistani men did not want to sit next to her for religious reasons than they did about the home grown vandalism.
(My recommendation to United: Next time move the person to first class at no additional charge and plop a snot-nosed baby between the complainers.)
Rusty Kennedy, chief executive director of OC Human Relations Commission, told the Orange County Register that his agency has logged 22 hate incidents and four hate crimes, including the Coto incident, in the past month.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.