Scarborough police announced Wednesday afternoon that two teenagers have been charged with aggravated criminal mischief in connection with an incident in which profanities and a swastika were allegedly spray painted on a home and driveway on Jameco Mill Road.
A 16-year-old female from Windham and 17-year-old male from Old Orchard Beach were issued summonses for the crime, as well as for graffiti found at a town concession stand at Wiley Field on Tenney Lane, police said in a post on the department’s Facebook page.
Both acts of vandalism allegedly took place on April 3.
“The investigation uncovered that the [Jameco Mill Road] residence was targeted, [but] the crime was not hate-[based],” the police post stated, in part. “The incident was not a random act.”
The swastika was used as a symbol of the Nazi party in Germany leading into and during World War II, when the group systematically killed 6 million Jewish prisoners, and has become widely taken as a sign of hatred and antisemitism since.
Ellie Miller, executive director of the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine in Portland, told The Forecaster in the aftermath of the crimes, the symbol used in the graffiti is “powerful, hurtful and terrible.”
She added that even if the family targeted wasn’t Jewish, the vandalism was “scary, an invasion of personal space and horrible.”
The two teenagers are scheduled to be arraigned in Cumberland County District Court on May 26, according to police.
