Ontario - Hate crime investigation

Pauline Morris has already painted over the crudely scrawled swastika on her garage door.

But the Dundas woman still feels it like a bull’s eye on her back.

Morris awoke Saturday morning to find the crude Nazi symbol and the name “Hitler” painted on the door of her Golfview Crescent home. Her van was tagged, too, but with nothing more than “squiggles.”

I feel targeted. I feel scared,” said Morris, who is Jewish. “I had to get rid of it right away. My parents are Holocaust survivors… I just couldn’t look at it.”

Hamilton Police are investigating the graffiti as a potential hate crime, said Staff Sgt. Matt Kavanagh.

Three homes on the street were tagged overnight, Kavanagh said, but only Morris’ graffiti appeared obviously anti-Semitic.

Hate crimes are “fairly rare” in the city, Kavanagh said.

Sometimes, graffiti-lovers scrawl offensive symbols or words in public just for the shock value, he said.

But in this case, the victim obviously has a concern and a fear of what happened,” said Kavanagh, who added Morris would be offered support from the victims services branch. “We take these things very seriously.”

Morris hopes the use of a swastika and reference to Nazi Germany’s infamous leader, Adolf Hitler, was an unlucky coincidence.

She hopes the offensive painters were merely insensitive, rather than purposely malicious.

She would prefer to know, however.

If it was just stupid, drunken idiots, well, that’s still bad, but it’s not scary,” she said.

“If that’s the case, I want them to know it’s not just something fun and stupid to do. It hurt people. I want them to think about that.”