Racist Graffiti Taggers Hit Fountain Hills Cars

More than a dozen cars were vandalized over the weekend in a quiet neighborhood in Fountain Hills. Swastikas and other offensive images were painted on them, and residents are worried if hate crimes are happening in their community.

More News »

"We're backing out of the driveway in my car. We look over, and what is that on my car? Two swastikas just drawn on the trunk," says Steven Welsh. But he wasn't the only one targeted.

"Many other cars in the neighborhood had this graffiti drawn on them. They had swastikas, the letters W and P, they had crude male genitalia drawn on them."

Another victim of the vandalism is especially hurt -- because his great aunts and uncles died in the Holocaust.

"They do not know the severity of the joke they pulled on me. I am affected by it, real bad," says Howie Rosen, who is Jewish. The swastika painted on his girlfriend's car is a symbol of Nazi Germany as well as racist skinheads.

"I really do not know what to make of it. I am hoping and praying it was a young kid who had no idea what he put on that car," says Rosen. "But what am I going to do, arm myself? Wait for someone to break into my house? I do not want to live like that."

"You do not draw offensive symbols like that and expect people to just shake it off. It's not right," says Welsh.

MCSO filed a report, but are just now learning that many more cars were hit by the vandals. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is denouncing the vandalism.