Some Stettler business owners were shocked and disturbed to find swastikas and racist graffiti scrawled on their buildings this week.
The Grandview Grocery store had “go back to your country” written on a front window in black paint, along with a swastika and some obscenities. The store’s owners are of Asian descent.
Their son, Denny Park, said seeing this message was disturbing and “very shocking.”
The family later discovered these kinds of hateful words were also scrawled overnight last weekend on other Stettler buildings, including two schools, a Subway restaurant, and the front door of the local RCMP detachment.
Video footage handed over to RCMP shows the suspects are three teenagers.
Denny believes these young people “were bored and had nothing better to do.”
But photos of the racist tags were shared on social media by some outraged Albertans.
“I think it’s important to show that rural Alberta has some serious issues,” one woman tweeted. “Justifying that it was probably kids… (is) not excusable.”
Since the Park family arrived from South Korea about a decade ago, they have not had an issue with the Stettler community. Denny’s mother, Joanne Park said her customers are “nice people,” and this is the first time the store was tagged with racist words and symbols.
However, she saw recent news reports of Asian Americans becoming targets for anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S.
Except for the Indigenous population, Canada, as well as the U.S., is made up of people who come from elsewhere, said Joanne, so these vandals likely had ancestors who arrived from another country.
Corp. Troy Savinkoff, media relations officer for the Central Alberta RCMP detachments, said the ‘go-home’ messages, swastikas and 666 symbols are “very unfortunate,” but it’s too early to determine whether this is a hate crime.
Stettler RCMP is continuing to investigate these incidents.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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