Alexandria police investigate discriminatory graffiti

Graffiti targeting immigrants popping up around Alexandria. Yeah, with election day just more than a week away, some residents say that it feels like intimidation. And now police are working to track down who is responsible. Fox 5's Regina Ureta joins us live from Alexandria with the latest. Regina? Yeah, Jim and Angie, some of that graffiti was painted along this pathway here. This is a family park in Alexandria. The people who I talked to say this was disturbing graffiti, but they also believe it was meant to spark fear. I want you to take a look at these images. Someone spray-painted these messages at multiple locations along the Mount Jefferson Park pathway on Clifford Avenue. You can see the words ICE and REPORT TO DEPORT with the ICE hotline number painted below. Alexandria police are investigating this as a bias incident. They say they're searching for the person responsible. Authorities release this image of a possible suspect. Investigators believe the vandalism happened sometime between 11 Friday night and just before 7 Saturday morning. Now, police are asking for the public's help to track down this individual. The police chief says incidents that intimidate people or make members of the community feel targeted have no place in Alexandria. And the neighbors I spoke with agree. I think it's very hateful. I don't, I think it's, I mean, I think if that person wanted to put that message out, if I had a message, I would go to somebody and say that message to them directly. So the fact that they're hiding in the night and doing this just kind of tells you that they know what's wrong. and I think they're trying to scare people. It's surprising that it's in this neighborhood again because it's very blue very liberal but I guess yeah some kind of tactic to to scare people to vote a certain way. And this isn't the first incident to raise concerns in the neighborhood just two weeks ago residents woke up to find flyers showing the seal of the Department of Homeland Security asking people to report possible immigration and voting law violations. DHS did not distribute the flyers but in a written statement when asked about these two incidents the agency says vandalism is a crime so is being in our country illegally we encourage all patriotic americans to help DHS DHS law enforcement uphold the nation's immigration laws now this comes as alexandria police prepares for election day the department stresses that policing polling places is not their role but they will uphold the constitution as far as this incident police have obtained a search warrant and they're urging the public for help back to you