Vandalism Prompts High School Assembly on Bigotry

Piedmont High School students will be attending a school-wide assembly Friday addressing recent incidents of racist and anti-Semitic graffiti. Additionally, teachers will discuss the issue with their second period classes.

Principal Randy Booker sent out an email to parents Thursday afternoon saying that the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms of the high school's 30s Building had been vandalized and a report filed with Piedmont Police. He said he learned of the first incident a week ago and discovered the second Wednesday.

"The images are so disturbing," Booker wrote, "that the staff agrees immediate action is necessary."

A single individual appears to be responsible for the graffiti, according to Booker.

"Personally, I am angry and offended by these actions," Booker told parents. "Please understand that staff and students will also have similar feelings."

School administrators could not be reached for further details or comment Thursday.

Piedmont Police have recorded at least four other reports of hateful graffiti around the city last fall and again this spring:

• , police were notified that "the Jews" had been inscribed in black ink on a stop sign at the intersection of Waldo Avenue and Park Way to form an anti-Semitic slogan. "KKK" and the n-word had also been scrawled nearby.
• , police were alerted that signs and rocks along the walking path from Artuna Avenue into Dracena Park had been spray-painted with a swastika and the n-word.
• , a mezuzah (a boxed Jewish scroll) was reportedly ripped from the front door of a home on Lafayette Avenue during Hanukkah.
• , a porta-potty on Hillside Avenue was reported to have been vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti.