Photos courtesy of Griselda Suarez.

UPDATED WITH LBPD RESPONSE AS TO WHY NO REPORT WAS TAKEN AFTER STORY

In a city that prides itself on being the most racially diverse in the country, blatant racism should be a non-issue. But a series of hateful notes left on the cars of Hispanic beachgoers on Labor Day showed that racism is not only still out there, but it wields a Sharpie.

As the OC Weekly first reported yesterday, someone went through a Belmont Shore parking lot on Monday and left anonymous notes on at least four cars telling “wetbacks” to “go back to Baja” and saying that it was “sad” how “The Mexicans invaded this beach now.” The notes also make sweeping racial accusations (like “you Mexicans took over Cherry Beach”) and even included a large sad face.

“We were there for no more than an hour because of the meter,” said Griselda Suarez, a local business owner and Chicano Studies teacher at Cal State Long Beach, who says her car received one of the notes while parked in the Laverne lot off of East Ocean Blvd. “I don’t know [how they knew who was Hispanic]. I can only imagine that this person is staking out.”

Suarez took photos of two of the notes—which though written on different colored sheets of lined paper and with different markers, were clearly done by the same (presumabely white) hand—and said there were at least two more on other cars. Suarez also tried to file a police report after discovering the notes, but the officer said there was nothing he could do.

“The police said that we couldn’t make a report because the person was not caught,” Suarez told the Post. “It was their freedom of speech. He took a picture of the sheets to share with other officers at their daily meeting.”

UPDATED FRIDAY, 11:58AM | Lisa Massacani of the Long Beach Police Department says that even though the hateful notes contained racial slurs, no report was taken because there was no description of a possible suspect and none of the notes presented to the officer contained direct or specific threats.

It was determined that no crime occurred in this incident, but it was documented anyway. Officers patrolled the area looking for a person leaving notes or any other suspicious activity, but did not locate any.

“The Long Beach Police Department Violent Crimes Detail has reviewed this incident and found no other similar incidents were reported at other locations and it appears that this was an isolated and random incident,” Massacani said.