The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office announced charges on Tuesday for a Texas man who allegedly vandalized a menorah in California with a Nazi symbol Sunday night.
Eric Brian King, 47, a resident of Dallas, has been charged with felony vandalism with a hate crime allegation for throwing items at a nine-foot-tall menorah on display at a Beverly Hills home, the district attorney’s office said.
The office also shared that King has been accused of carving “a symbol associated with the German Nazi regime into the base” of the menorah.
Officers with the Beverly Hills Police Department received a call on Sunday that someone was “defacing a menorah,” the department said in a news release.
King was arrested for the crime, which was caught on surveillance video at the Beverly Hills property, according to the police.
“A despicable act such as this will never be tolerated in our City,” Police Chief Mark G. Stainbrook said in a statement.
District Attorney George Gascón shared in a statement that hate such as this “will not be tolerated.”
“The ugliness of antisemitism has revealed itself in many ways throughout our community and across the country in recent weeks,” Gascón said.
This is the latest act of antisemitism to make headlines, as several well-known figures, like artist Kanye West, have come out in recent months sharing anti-jewish messages.
The issue has gotten so bad that the Department of Homeland Security issued a terrorism advisory bulletin last month for rising concerns about possible threats toward the Jewish community.
“Certainly, the Jewish community seems particularly targeted in recent days by that kind of activity in our discourse,” a DHS official shared while announcing the advisory.
As for King, he is expected to be arraigned on Tuesday and was being held in custody on a $20,000 bail as of Wednesday, the district attorney’s office and online records show.
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