On January 3rd, 2013, a community member contacted CAIR-WA to report graffiti on a Puget Sound area Islamic school’s property.

Someone had painted “Freedom is Chained” outside of an office building near the school’s 1st and 2nd grade classrooms.

In response, the school covered the graffiti with a tarp and reported the incident to the police.

A few days later, on January 14, 2013, we received a phone call from a parent of a child at the same school, stating that the school had been vandalized again. Someone with the same signature and handwriting “It is rude to cover up art,” beside the previous graffiti.

Following this incident, which the school has captured on video surveillance, police officers came to the school and reported four other schools had been targeted by this person in the same city. At this point, several parents at the school discussed amongst themselves their fear that a more severe incident or a physical attack on the school or its students could occur in the future.

In response to these reports of repeated incidents, CAIR-WA contacted the school’s principal and a member of the school’s board of directors to discuss setting up a teacher training on community safety.   CAIR-WA’s mission is to respond to cases as complainants see fit, and seek resolutions they desire. We did not seek media publicity regarding the event, because many parents at the school did not feel comfortable doing so.