SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – A month after Pacifica police began investigating the burning of an LGBTQ Pride flag at an elementary school, officials are now investigating vandalism featuring Nazi symbols on the same campus and the theft of an LGBTQ Pride flag from another.
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The Pacifica Police Department on Thursday responded to reports of a burglary at Stone Ridge Elementary School. There, police said the responding officers found a portable classroom "completely ransacked." They discovered "a child's doll with a Swastika inscribed on its forehead," according to a release published on Friday, and staff said "several" computers and electronics were missing.
Police said an unknown person removed an LGBTQ Pride flag affixed to a classroom on the same campus on June 6, burning it and leaving it on the other side of campus.
Pacifica police didn't specify whether the two incidents occurred in the same classroom, nor did they update the status of the flag-burning investigation – which they said last month would be looked into as a possible hate crime – in Friday's release. The Pacifica Police Department didn't respond to KCBS Radio's emailed request for comment prior to publication on Friday night.
On Wednesday, police said an Oceana High School administrator told officers that an LGBTQ Pride flag was stolen from a flag pole in front of the gymnasium. Police didn't say whether the alleged theft was being investigated as a possible hate crime, and officials didn't respond to KCBS Radio's emailed questions asking if they were before press time.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta released a report last month showing that hate crimes were reported last year at their highest level since 2001, with reported hate crimes "involving a sexual orientation bias" rising 47.8%. The reported incidents in Pacifica this week follow a surge in threats and violence against LGBTQ Pride events last month, and as state lawmakers have introduced hundreds of bills limiting LGBTQ Americans' rights ahead of this fall's midterm elections.
Last month, a group of alleged Proud Boys hurled homophobic and transphobic slurs during a Drag Queen Story Hour at the San Lorenzo Library. The Alameda County Sherriff's Office said at the time it was investigating a possible hate crime, but officials have not provided an update on the investigation since then.
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