Stoneham, MA – Alyson Addonizio returned home with her young daughter Tuesday evening, disgusted by the overnight events on her normally peaceful street, Whittemore Lane.
“They’ve been my neighbors for a very long time and they’re just incredible,” Addonizio said. “It really breaks my heart.”
She’s talking about something that greeted her Jewish neighbor when she stepped outside Tuesday morning.
“This morning when the residents came out of their home, they found a number of swastikas,” Stoneham Police Chief James McIntyre said.
Five to be exact, made out of poster board and painted purple, some with antisemitic slurs handwritten on them.
“I couldn’t imagine being a resident of our community coming out in the morning and seeing that on the front lawn,” McIntyre said.
The woman initially posted pictures of the offending symbols on the community Facebook page to see if others in Stoneham had been targeted, but later removed her post and now does not want her family or house identified.
Peggy Shukur of the Anti-Defamation League points to an almost 50% leap in antisemitic incidents last year in Massachusetts, higher than the national average and says it breeds if communities don’t condemn it loudly.
“These sort of incidents don’t occur in a vacuum,” Shukur said. “This type of hate has no boundaries.”
Police say they’ll scour the neighborhood for surveillance video suspecting the culprits struck long after trick or treaters were gone.
“Depending on where the investigation takes us it could be a violation of constitutional rights which would be a felony,” McIntyre said.
The victim has told police she has received no previous threats and police have not yet found anyone else who was targeted.
The victim does have a video doorbell, but it apparently did not capture the culprits.
