Washington Post, October 17. 1993

Suspect Arrested in
Painting of Swastikas

 

by Serge F. Kovaleski

A Greek-born Iowa resident, who was living out of a car in the Washington area, has been arrested for allegedly spray painting swastikas on a downtown telephone booth and is a suspect in what police say has been the worst hate graffiti assault in memory in the nation's capital.

Swastikas and Nazi SS insignias, painted in black, red or silver, began showing up on District streets last month just before the start of the Jewish High Holidays. Soon, hundreds of the symbols appeared on newspaper boxes, phone booths, buildings and other objects in a four-mile swath of the city.

"Numbers wise, this is the worst hate-type graffiti I have seen since I joined the police department in 1973," said Detective Michael J. Brooks, hate crimes coordinator for the D.C. police intelligence division.

"Anything that is not moving" was a target.

D.C. police said Esyededeea Aesfyta, a Greek born resident of Ames, Iowa, who is unemployed, was arrested at 5:20 a.m. last Sunday after an officer saw him spray painting a large swastika on a phone booth at 10th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

Aesfyza, who had two cans of black paint in a bag, told the arresting officer that he had hit several other sites on Pennsylvania Avenue, police said. The suspect, according to police, said the graffiti were not intended to replicate the Nazi swastika, but rather a pagan symbol that looks similar.

Police said Aesfyza has been charged with destruction of property.

The swastika, one of the world's oldest symbols, is used in many cultures and found extensively in Asia, where it has been adopted by eastern religions such as Jainism and Buddhism.

Its wide range of meanings over the centuries include the seal of Buddha's heart, the sun, the four quarters of the moon, the four winds and the seasons, fortune and fertility.

Police said the swastikas allegedly drawn by Aesfyza were identidal to the ones used by the Nazis. The symbol is inside a circle and tilted slightly. Investigators said the swastika Aesfyza was caught spray painting was the same as the scores of others that have appared across the city in the lastmonth.

The U.S. attorney's office is considering prosecuting Aesfyza for the other Nazi graffiti that have appeared throughout the District. Attempts to reach Aesfyza or his lawyer yesterday were unsuccessful.

"It is disgusting, shocking, represhensible and inexcusable," said City Administrator Robert L. Mallett.

Mallett said that if Aesfyza is successfully prosecuted for the graffiti writing, the District would seek to have a judge fine him for whatever it costs the city to clean it up.

Investigators said that because the swastika graffiti seen in the scity usually have had the SS insignia next to them, they believe they werea intended as white supremacist propaganda.

Police said they have not been able to determine whether Aesfyza has ties with any neo-Nazi or white supremacist groups.

Investigators said the Nazi insignias marred an area that stretched from the Key Bridge in Georgetown east to near the Capitol grounds, and from the Potomac River north to Washington National Cathedral. The graffiti have been spotted on newspaper vending machines outside the Holocaust Museum and the Justice Department as well as across the street from the White House.

The symbols have been emblazoned on everything from office buildings and Metro station walls to storefronts and a visitor Center sign on the Mall.

"What has been disturbing is the level of pain and anguish this has caused." Said David C. Friedman, executive director of the Anti-Defamation League's Washington office.

He said his staff has been inundated with more than 100 telephone calls in the last three weeks from people complaining about the graffiti, including the words "Burn the Jews" found on a Vermont Avenue NW phone booth.

Police said they have seen an increase in similar hate crimes in the District in the last 18 months, particularly in the use of decals with anti-Semitic and anti-homosexual slogans.

"The people of this city will not be intimidated by bigots armed with cans of spray paint." Friedman said. The ADL along with the D.C. Department of Public Works and other volunteer groups, is planning a community cleanup of the graffiti that is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday.


Horde | Erasing Hate | Swastikas | Man Guilty