Racist graffiti found on Rochester legislator’s home, Kamala Harris signs

A Rochester state legislator awoke Saturday to find black spray-painted swastikas, a racial slur and the letters “KKK” spray-painted on her home and lawn signs for her re-election and for Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Vice President Kamala Harris.

DFL Rep. Kim Hicks said home security videos recorded masked vandals spray-painting the graffiti overnight Friday. Besides the signs, she said, the vandals marred a window and her shed.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence it occurred after we put up a Kamala [Harris] sign,” Hicks said Sunday.

She said she’s worried about a pattern of racist graffiti in Rochester, especially after an anti-Black slur was painted on a pedestrian bridge near a city high school earlier this summer.

In a Facebook post, the NAACP Rochester Minnesota Branch called the vandalism a “textbook case” of a hate crime.

“This is yet another incident in a series of many that have targeted Black people, brown people, and mixed race families in [the] City of Rochester, MN and Olmsted County,” the post read.

The NAACP said the vandals should face serious criminal charges.

Hicks, who is running for a second term in the Legislature, said she was not surprised her campaign signs were defaced, but she was shaken by the appearance of a swastika on one of her windows. She said she worried about the effect on her six children.

Over the weekend, as Rochester-area news outlets posted the news, Hicks said she has seen comments on websites and Facebook pages claiming she staged the graffiti and speculating about her children’s skin color.

“There are just some weird racial undertones, weird racial language,” she said. “There’s a political piece, but there’s also just a racial hate piece, and that rhetoric is happening all over the place”

But Hicks said her community rallied to help the next morning, showing up with supplies to remove the graffiti and apply fresh paint.

That neighborliness, she said, was a stark contrast to the people who showed up in the middle of the night with masks and spray paint.

“They showed up and showed what community can do.”

Rochester Police Public Information Officer Amanda Grayson said police are investigating, and asked the public to come forward with any information about who may have vandalized Hicks’ home.