Tenants in buildings on the 100 block of Person Street woke up Thursday morning to a troubling scene — swastikas and offensive phrases graffitied on exterior building walls facing 133 Person St., including an apartment building and an abandoned hair salon.
A resident in the vandalized apartment building also discovered a swastika on their door just before midnight on Wednesday, a police report confirms.
The vandalism occurred in a particularly visible area downtown less than a block from the Market House.
“With regards to the code enforcement, a field report was made, no citation was issued and the city will follow up on Monday,” Fayetteville’s Communications Director Loren Bymer told CityView in a text message Thursday.
Bymer indicated the graffiti wouldn’t be removed immediately, since city staff did not yet “have all those facts” required to determine whether the city or the building owner was responsible for cleaning it up. (CityView publisher Tony Chavonne is the owner of one of the vandalized properties.)
The resident whose door was graffitied, and who requested anonymity, suspects that the incident occurred between 9 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. Wednesday. They immediately called the police after seeing the swastika, and the incident is documented in a police report.
“It was very alarming,” the person said. “I'm not Jewish, but I have a lot of friends that are. It’s just a scary thing to come home to and obviously upsetting. So hopefully they figure it out.”
The graffiti comes at a time when federal officials have warned of increasing hate crimes against Arab, Jewish and Muslim communities amid the war in Gaza. FBI Director Christopher Wray said that antisemitism in the U.S. is reaching “historic levels” in the wake of violence in Israel and Gaza.
The owner hired a worker to paint over the graffiti, but the swastikas and offensive phrases remained in the alleyway as of Thursday evening. Security cameras of businesses surrounding the buildings did not appear to capture the incidents, according to several owners with shops facing the lot.
Neighbors also said a man’s vehicle across the street from the buildings was vandalized with graffiti Wednesday night, and a case in the police department’s mapping portal confirms an incident of vandalism was reported in that location Thursday, though no report exists in the public database in reference to the case number.
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Fayetteville Police Department Public Information Officer Rickelle Harrell said Thursday morning she was not aware of the graffiti in response to a CityView inquiry. By Thursday evening, Harrell confirmed that a report did exist, and CityView was able to acquire it by cross-referencing the case number of the incident in the department’s crime mapping database. The report only references the vandalism on a single occupation dwelling, and does not pertain to the extensive graffiti on the sides of the buildings.
The police report states the case involving the resident’s door will be investigated further.
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608.
