The Coast Guard has opened an investigation after a “hand-drawn” swastika was found at a recruit training center in New Jersey, according to reports.
A Coast Guard instructor found the swastika Thursday evening on the wall of a men’s bathroom at the training center in Cape May, The Washington Post reported Monday, citing two people familiar with the matter and correspondence reviewed by the publication. ABC News also reported about the swastika being found at the training center.
While a Coast Guard spokesperson told The Independent a “hate symbol” was drawn on a bathroom wall at the New Jersey training center, it would not confirm whether it was a swastika.
“Following discovery of a hate symbol drawn on a bathroom wall in a building at Training Center Cape May, the Coast Guard immediately referred the matter to the Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS) for investigation — consistent with longstanding Coast Guard policy,” the spokesperson said.
Following the incident, Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Kevin Lunday spoke to nearly 900 recruits and staff members at the training center “to address the incident directly, reinforce the Coast Guard’s strong standards and policies, and reaffirm the Service’s dedication to accountability through our core values,” according to the spokesperson.
The Washington Post reported in November that the Coast Guard would no longer classify swastikas and nooses as hate symbols, but rather just as “potentially divisive.”
Lunday had denied the reporting, telling The Independent at the time, “The claims that the U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses or other extremist imagery as prohibited symbols are categorically false.”
“Any display, use or promotion of such symbols, as always, will be thoroughly investigated and severely punished,” Lunday said.
The public display of swastikas was banned in Germany and other European countries after Adolf Hitler used it as the symbol of the Nazi Party, which, along with their collaborators, was responsible for the killing of about six million Jewish people and many others in the 20th Century, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The display of the swastika symbol is not outright banned in the U.S. because of free speech protections, the Holocaust museum said on its website.
In a statement shared with The Washington Post and ABC News, Lunday condemned “extremist ideology,” saying it has no place in the Coast Guard.
“Anyone who adheres to or advances hate or extremist ideology — get out. Leave. You don’t belong in the United States Coast Guard and we reject you,” Lunday said.
“We will not allow anyone to put a stain of hate on our United States Coast Guard,” the commandant said. “We will not be defined by the cowardly acts, but instead be defined by our unwavering response and our resolve to defeat them.”
