Masked suspect burns rainbow flag hanging from home and gives Nazi salute, OR cops say
A masked person was caught on surveillance camera committing a possible hate crime in Oregon, police said.
The suspect set an American flag on fire that police say was rainbow-colored to show support for the LGBTQ+ community in the early morning hours of Halloween. The flag had been hanging in front of a home in Newberg, which is about 20 miles southwest of Portland.
After they lit the flag on fire, they gave what appeared to be a Nazi salute directly toward the home’s surveillance camera as they sauntered out of view, police said.
Newberg-Dundee Police detectives are investigating it as a “bias crime,” also known as a hate crime, and as an arson, police said in a news release posted to Facebook. Detectives asked for help identifying the suspect, whose facial features were almost completely covered by what appeared to be a mask and a beanie.
“The Newberg-Dundee Police Department takes these cases very seriously and there is no place in our community for these types of actions,” the statement said.
Police ask anyone with information about the suspect to contact Detective Daniel Fouch at 503-538-8321 or daniel.fouch@newbergoregon.gov.
Rainbow-colored flags have been hotly debated in the town in recent months after Newberg Public Schools banned Pride flags, along with other flags the school board said are political, from schools, KATU2 reported.
That debate continued in the comments on the police department’s Facebook post, with some criticizing the school board’s actions and some defending them.
Others commented with Pride flag emojis or with American flag ones.
Another user wrote that the hate they were seeing in the comments is “as infuriating and sick as the actual crime.”
“We can’t pretend that the social and political and systemic racism and bigotry in this country, AND this country, don’t play into not only this despicable act, but these despicable comments as well,” the user wrote in the comment.
Others simply seemed to be in disbelief at the Nazi salute into the camera. Many thanked the police department for treating the incident as a serious offense.
“Our community needs to be aware this is happening and being handled,” one user wrote.
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