Vandals who spray-painted racial slurs in Sammamish, return to spray-paint ‘sorry’

The vandals who spray-painted swastikas and racial slurs around a Sammamish neighborhood last week, returned. But this time it was to apologize in spray-paint form with a scrawled “Sorry.”

“More graffiti was found at Klahanie Park. It was a couple different things,” King County Sheriff’s Sergeant Ryan Abbott told KIRO Radio. “First it was the word spray-painted ‘Sorry’, and then next to that there was another spray-paint — it was hard to read — that read, ‘Not hate, just’ something, and then another ‘Sorry.'”

RELATED: Homes vandalized with racist graffiti in Sammamish neighborhood

The original vandalism included spray-painted racist words across 17 locations in the Klahanie neighborhood, including walls, fences, garages, vehicles, and mailboxes. The Sammamish City Council said in a statement at the time that the community “will not stand for this kind of behavior.”

“It’s in the same red spray paint as before,” Sergeant Abbott said, “and they were just trying to say that they didn’t mean any hate by their tags, which of course were offensive as you had read, but now they’re updating it to say this.”

It’s not clear at this point if the suspects were targeting specific families. “Looking at the tags and where they were at, it’s almost as if they were picking a street and tagging every couple of houses,” Sergeant Abbott said. “Not necessarily knowing who lived in the houses, at least as far as we’re aware of at this time. That could always change once we identify the suspects and interview them.”

The spray painted apology won’t cut it, and police are continuing to investigate. They’re hoping that surveillance video will provide additional information.