Authorities in Boise, Idaho, are investigating after the only Anne Frank memorial in the US was defaced with swastika stickers.
"We take all instances of hate and hate messaging seriously," the Boise Police Department said in a statement Wednesday. "We are committed to ferreting out individuals who would sow hate in our community and seek to cause harm."
Investigators are currently reviewing surveillance video, police added.
Nine stickers bearing the Nazi symbol and the words "We are everywhere" were discovered at the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial Tuesday morning, the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights said in a Facebook post.
Idaho has a troubled history of neo-Nazi and white supremacist sentiment dating back decades. The extremist Aryan Nations group was based in a compound in the state from the late 1970s until 2001 and in the past few years.
Last year, the Associated Press reported that white extremist groups were on the rise in the Pacific Northwest, with at least nine of them classified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center operating along the Idaho/Washington border.
The stickers were discovered the same day as an intense anti-mask rally in the state capital. State health officials were also forced to end a meeting on a four-county mask mandate because armed protesters outside the state capital and the homes of board members were deemed a threat to public safety.
"This is not normal — the rhetoric we've seen over the past days and months has no place in our community," Boise Mayor Lauren McLean said in a statement Wednesday. "Bad actors who use racist and violent rhetoric are not welcome in this community."
The Only Anne Frank Memorial In The United States Was Defaced With Swastika Stickers
Stickers bearing the Nazi symbol and the words "We are everywhere" were found Tuesday at the memorial in Idaho.
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