In an apparent hate crime, stickers bearing the Nazi swastika and the words “WE ARE EVERYWHERE” were placed on the doors of the Alaska Jewish Museum and a gay bar in the Anchorage early Tuesday morning, the Associated Press reports.
Security cameras show a man wearing a hood and a mask putting a sticker on the glass door of the Alaska Jewish Museum at around 2:00 a.m. Tuesday. About 45 minutes later, a camera caught the same individual putting a duplicate sticker on the front door of Mad Myrna’s, a gay bar in downtown Anchorage.
“What that sticker symbolizes is hate,” Anchorage police spokesperson MJ Thim told The Associated Press. “And we’re not going to stand for it, and there’s no place for it. And we’re going to investigate it and figure out what this is all about.”
The FBI is working with the Anchorage police on the case. While this is the first case of these stickers being reported in Alaska, similar stickers were put on locations around Bellingham, Washington.
“Swastikas have also become a symbol of white supremacy and the far right, and actions like this disproportionately impact people of color in the LGBTQ community,” said Laura Carpenter, executive director of Identity Inc., an Alaska LGBTQ+ organization headquartered in Anchorage. “This is just another example of people trying to demonize the LGBTQ community and Jewish people.”