Swastikas and the numbers "666" were painted at two schools and on up to 14 cars in the neighborhoods in Rancho Penasquitos and Hilltop Park Monday.
“This is in a very nice friendly, a nice and friendly neighborhood and I can’t imagine why anyone would come in here and do that,” said resident Helen Davis.
Davis woke up to the sight of news cameras on her street. Police officers soon followed taking images of vehicles on Gainsborough Drive and Adobe Bluffs Drive and gathering statements from the vehicle owners.
Car owner Dave Kelly called the act horrible “especially on a day like today.”
Kelly discounted the idea of a hate crime because his vehicle had a Marine sticker on his car and he doubts it was targeted.
“It’s just stupidity,” he said. “It’s minor, you can clean it up."
Police officers said the vandals also damaged property at Black Mountain Middle School and Sunset Hills Elementary School.
San Diego police investigators are not pursuing this as a hate crime according to SDPD Lt. Andra Brown.
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“Hate crimes are defined as the victim not the act,” Brown explained. “Here there was no particular intended victim. It appears to be more random in nature.”
For Davis, this act of vandalism in what she called a loving neighborhood brings up a desire to see more civility.
“Every time I see something like that, I’m still appalled that we still have that much prejudice in this world,” Davis said. “I think it’s really sad and I would really hope that we would get it together as a nation."
Officers have no suspects in custody. Someone reported seeing two white male teenagers doing the damage and leaving in a dark green four-door sedan with its passenger tail light out, police said.
