Update, Oct. 10: The Central Marin Police Authority says it has identified two juveniles, ages 12 and 13, as the suspects. Police said they gathered enough evidence to forward the case to the Marin County District Attorney's Office, which will decide whether to file charges. The agency, which also polices Larkspur and Corte Madera, said it will not release the youths' names or other identifying details because they are minors, and it did not say whether either was booked into juvenile hall, the Marin Independent Journal reported. Police credited the Ross Valley School District and tips from community members for helping identify the pair, NBC Bay Area reported. Police said the vandalism meets the state Penal Code definition of a hate crime because of the images and words and because school property was defaced.
Central Marin police are investigating antisemitic graffiti found at Brookside Elementary School in San Anselmo as a hate crime, and the local school district said early in the week that it believed it knew who did it.
What was found
The graffiti appeared on the asphalt near the school's multipurpose room sometime between the end of classes on Friday, Oct. 2, and Saturday evening. Police described a swastika alongside the words "I hate Jews," NBC Bay Area reported. Ross Valley School District Superintendent Tyler Graff told J. The Jewish News of Northern California that the drawing showed a Star of David "versus" a swastika, with a "W" over the swastika to signal a win, next to a misspelled anti-Jewish phrase.
Graff said the district was notified at 8:09 p.m. Saturday, filed a police report about 20 minutes later and that he removed the graffiti himself that night.
The investigation
Tips from community members pointed the district toward students, who administrators interviewed Monday morning, Graff told J. The district then turned its findings and the students' names over to police. He declined to say which school the students attend, saying only that it was "a first-time offense for something like this," and said police expected to finish their investigation within days. As of NBC Bay Area's report Tuesday, no arrests had been made.
A group of about a dozen Jewish families in the area raised a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, according to J. The school has only one or two cameras and the weekend footage was inconclusive, Graff said, and the district plans to add cameras at all four of its elementary schools. It is also reviewing its curriculum on hate speech and hateful symbols.
A community responds
Community members rallied at the school Monday morning, and on Tuesday evening the San Anselmo Town Council held a gathering on campus where neighbors wrote messages of love and belonging, NBC Bay Area reported. Anita Frank, a Holocaust survivor who attended, told the station that "when there is hatred against any group, there is hatred towards us all."
Some Jewish parents told J. they are reconsidering whether to keep their children at Brookside. One mother said her husband and son had found a swastika on the same campus in 2021. Graff said this is the first documented antisemitic incident in his two years as superintendent, though J. noted swastikas were reported at other San Anselmo schools in 2023.
J. also reported that the Brookside graffiti was one of three anti-Jewish incidents to draw attention in the Bay Area within a few days, along with antisemitic pamphlets left in Petaluma driveways and a video of a woman allegedly harassed in Sunnyvale for speaking Hebrew.