Long Beach City Council members and the mayor are denouncing the racist vandalism discovered on the city’s Martin Luther King Jr. statue last week, though some community members are calling on them to do more.
The outcry came in response to a swastika and what appeared to be SS bolts that police say were graffitied on the statue at Central Long Beach’s Martin Luther King Jr. Park some time before 3:18 p.m. Friday, which is when police were called.
“We are very aware that the desecration that happened is hateful, disrespectful, it’s disgusting and it should bother every single person in the city,” Mayor Robert Garcia said Tuesday at the beginning of a City Council meeting.
City crews quickly removed the hateful graffiti, and Councilwoman Suley Saro said the city is looking into getting a new camera system installed at the park.
“These individuals should not get away with doing this in the darkness of night without their identities being known,” said Councilman Al Austin.
Councilman Rex Richardson said there’s growing concern about hate crimes across the region.
“What we know is that this is not unique,” he said.
Across the state, hate crimes rose 31% in 2020, and that surge was driven in large part by an 88% increase in the number of hate crimes targeting Black residents, according to the most recent numbers available from the California Department of Justice.
Long Beach saw a different trend, with hate crimes declining in 2020 from an 11-year high of 23 in 2019. Crimes aimed at Black people also decreased, but they were still disproportionately targets of hate crimes, something that’s been true historically as well.
Since 2001, according to state DOJ data, 111 of the 346 hate crimes reported in Long Beach have been anti-Black. That’s 32%. Black residents make up 12% of the city’s population.
The next most frequently targeted group in Long Beach was gay men, according to state data, with 73 hate crimes aimed at them over the past 20 years.
After the City Council’s comments, Senay Kenfe, a local business owner and activist, criticized Richardson’s characterization of the event as “not unique,” saying he and other members of the Black community feel the vandalism hasn’t gotten the response it deserves.
“This attack on the statue of Dr. Martin Luther King is a unique moment,” he said. “ … We expect more, and we’re going to keep bringing this to the attention of the City Council until we feel like we get our respective response appropriate for our presence—our historic presence—in the city, but especially in the 6th [City Council] District.”
Long Beach police say they’re investigating the vandalism as a hate crime. They have not announced an arrest or any suspects, but they have vowed to treat the investigation with the weight it deserves.
“This is no small issue,” LBPD Assistant Chief Wally Hebeish said at a peace rally Saturday in response to the crime.
The Martin Luther King Jr. statue was also vandalized in 2019 when someone stole a plaque that commemorated the civil rights leader and the community members who raised funds to install it.
The nameplate was replaced nearly two years later. Police said at the time that they hadn’t been able to track down any suspects.