Swastikas, Racial Slurs Drawn In Bathroom, Nursery School Of Oak Park Church

OAK PARK, IL — Swastikas and several racial slurs were scrawled on bathroom stalls and on a nursery school door in a hate crime that took place Oak Park in Oak Park less than a week after a white supremacist plowed a car into a crowd of protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. According to police, the hate crime took place some time between 2 p.m. Friday, August 18, and 7 a.m. Saturday, August 19, at Pilgrim Church in the 400 block of Lake Street.

The offender(s) used a blue marker to write a racial slur on a sign in a men's bathroom in the church basement. They also wrote the same racial slur and drew two swastikas on a staff photograph that hung on a door to a community nursery school located inside the church.

This recent hate crime comes less than two months after swastika graffiti was found inside Oak Park-River Forest High School. Hate crimes have increased sharply throughout the country since late 2016. The Southern Law Poverty Center reported that nearly 900 hate crimes took place in the 10 days following the Presidential election.

No arrests have been made in the incident, which police are investigating as a hate crime and disorderly conduct.