Racist graffiti was painted overnight outside the office of the Oklahoma Democratic Party. A swastika, the symbol 1488 and other Nazi references were painted on and around the door of 3700 N. Classen Blvd., with language demonizing African Americans and the LGBTQ community also spray painted in blue.
The office building is managed by Oklahoma Property Investors, a company owned by former Oklahoma Gov. David Walters. Learning of the situation this morning, Walters called it “unfortunate.”
“We hope the hate crimes we see across the country don’t arrive at our doorstep. But they do inevitably,” he said. “It’s just more evidence of what divisive and inflammatory rhetoric is doing to our culture.”
Malori Walker saw the hate speech in the parking lot as she walked up to the building. The human resources manager for the Boys & Girls Club of Oklahoma County, Walker is African American and saw the words “Democrats N—-rs Trannies” painted outside her office.
“I’m disgusted by it,” Walker said. “It’s insane that people would decide to use whatever energy they have into spreading hate. I just don’t understand. It’s sickening, and it’s insane.”
Walker said children often come to the three-level office complex owing to another tenant. The Office of Juvenile Affairs also has space inside the building. Asked what she’d say to whoever perpetrated the racist vandalism, Walker attempted to be constructive.
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“Maybe try to spend more energy trying to get to know other people with backgrounds different than your own,” she said.
Managers for Oklahoma Property Investors found a rectangular sheet of paper inside the office building’s foyer. Featuring a disfigured face of former President Barack Obama, the flier preached white nationalist rhetoric.
Walters was somber.
“I’m sad that a political party has to withstand that kind of attack for simply being for education and health care and a better quality of life for Oklahomans,” he said.
NonDoc is a tenant in an identical building just north of where the vandalism took place. Walters owns that building, too.
Oklahoma City Police Captain James Boggess was on scene investigating around 8:30 a.m. Thursday.
Around 10 a.m., Gov. Kevin Stitt tweeted this article and called the language used by vandals “abhorrent.”
“It does not reflect who we are as a state,” Stitt said in the tweet.
Later Thursday, word spread that the Chickasaw Nation’s Oklahoma City Area building also sustained similar vandalism overnight.
(Update: This article was updated at 10:08 a.m. Thursday, March 28, to include Gov. Kevin Stitt’s statement. It was updated again at 3:09 p.m. to include information about the incident at the Chickasaw Nation’s OKC building.)
