Several buildings in Miami Beach, including a Jewish women's
prayer center and a homeless outreach center, were found vandalized with hate
messages spray-painted with red, police said Tuesday.
The graffiti was found at the outreach center at 555 17th
Street, at the prayer center at 2530 Pinetree Drive, 2700 Sheridan Ave., which
is the Scott Rakow Youth Center and at a condo at 2851 Sheridan Ave.
More graffitti was also found on three youth center buses,
Miami Beach Police spokeswoman Vivian Hernandez said.
All of the messages, which were discovered by city employees
around 8 a.m., had the letters KKK, while some had bulls eye and an anarchist
symbol.
Officers were at the center investigating the incident early
Tuesday. A resident at the condo said the building, which is under renovation,
had a red bulls eye on the front door.
Officials said the workers had painted over most of the
messages early in the morning.
"It was terrible," Miami Beach Parks and
Recreation spokesman Julio Magrisso said. "The best thing we did is we
moved real quickly, we removed it and they won't see it. As we drive around
with the buses and we pick up the children this afternoon, it's already picked
up."
Hernandez said police are checking to see if nearby
surveillance cameras may have captured the crime.
"We believe that it may be one or two people
together," Hernandez said.
The police department also Tweeted out: "MBPD doesn't
tolerate hate against any members of our community . Special thanks to our
property management crews for the quick clean up."
Police are asking anyone who may have seen anything to come
forward.
"It's unfortunate that it happened in our city and in
our community," Hernandez said. "We don't want people to think that
messages of hate are okay in our city."
Anyone with information is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime
Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS.
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