A swastika was found carved into a playground at a school in Northport, Long Island, New York, reported Empire State News.
According to local police, the anti-Semitic graffiti was discovered on a slide at Ocean Avenue Elementary School by a parent on Monday evening.
School security guards removed the Nazi symbol on Tuesday morning. The school held a “welcome back” event only a few hours later.
“We have alerted the Northport Village Police, which are investigating the incident, and contacted the Suffolk County Police Department’s Hate Crimes Unit,” school district superintendent Robert Banzer wrote in a Tuesday statement to community members.
“We will cooperate fully with the police in their investigation, including the provision of video surveillance material.”
However, while police stated that the incident appears to have been isolated, a local anti-hate group, Not In Our Town Northport, stated in a letter sent to the school district that swastikas and other offensive symbols were spray painted on a second school, Dickson Avenue Elementary, in the area last year.
“We have to ask ourselves, what has this district done in the year since the Dickinson incident other than just painting over the symbols and words of hate? What measures has this district taken to clearly show that this will not be tolerated?”