The Medford Police Department and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the identification of those responsible for numerous graffiti incidents around Medford over the past year.
According to ADL Regional Director Robert Trestan, police discovered anti-Semitic and racially offensive graffiti in two vacant Medford homes this September. The graffiti is allegedly linked to two dozen incidents of vandalism that have occurred in the city since last spring.
The reward, provided by the ADL, serves as a monetary incentive for those who have information to come forward.
"From [ADL's] perspective ... there is a person who knows who's responsible," Trestan said. "Somebody has information and somebody knows who's responsible for this graffiti, and the reward is an incentive to draw out the persons who have information."
The most recent graffiti included apparent references to Aryan Nations, swastikas and a quote from Red Sox player David Ortiz's post-Boston marathon bombing speech in which he said, "This is our f**king city."
Similarly profane imagery was found throughout Medford on April 7, the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. According to an email to the Tufts community last semester, signs and other structures on Bello Field were defaced with swastikas and white supremacist slogans, among other offensive graffiti.
At the time of the Bello Field investigation, Medford police were already working with area gang units who identified a number of gang tags, such as clovers and the words, "Crew 28," according to FOX 25.
Although Bello Field is the only location on the Tufts campus to have been vandalized, many areas of the Medford community, including public schools, businesses and playgrounds, have been defaced, Trestan said.
"Incidents like this often are not directed at one individual or one individual group," Trestan said. "They're directed at multiple, including the community. It's important to remember that the community has not forgotten, that the police have not forgotten, and that they will continue to work on this until the people responsible for this are caught."
This most recent incident has re-sparked investigations from the spring, Trestan explained.
"In the interim time between the recent incident and last spring, nobody had been identified as a possible suspect and so the latest incident was a bit of a reminder for everyone that the person, or persons responsible, [is] still out there," Trestan said.
While Medford police are leading the investigation, Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) is also providing assistance, according to an ADL statement announcing the reward. In the announcement, Director of Public and Environmental Safety Kevin Maguire expressed the university's support of the ADL initiative.
"We are proud to be part of the collective voice denouncing these incidents and, as always, we will assist the Medford police with their investigation as appropriate," Maguire said in the statement.
Trestan is hopeful that the award will inspire people with information to step forward, and is happy for so much cooperation between the police forces and the ADL.
"Everyone is working together in sync to spread the word which will hopefully lead to the perpetrators being identified," Trestan said.
