Elverta, CA – Vandals targeted a Sacramento County golf course overnight Thursday with antisemitic hate speech and symbols.
Ground crews at Cherry Island Golf Course discovered gouged greens and deep divots on and around the sixth hole of the course before the facility opened for the day.
The county shared photographs of the vandalism with KCRA 3. In them, it can be seen that vandals carved a swastika symbol deep into the green.
Photos show that antisemitic words were also found, along with numerous deep holes and pits — dug into that part of the course.
“When I got to the sixth hole today and saw the extent of the damage, it was… heartbreaking,” said golfer David Crayne, who has been playing the Cherry Island course for 20 years. “It was just heart-wrenching.”
What Crayne saw was a removal job, already in progress, as maintenance workers tended to the hate speech vandalism repairs first.
“It was obviously intentional and it was extensive,” Crayne said.
There’s no surveillance video at the part of the golf course where the vandalism occurred, according to the county.
A county spokesperson told KCRA 3 that law enforcement will increase patrols around Cherry Island Golf Course in light of the incident.
It is also working with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office to try to find those responsible for the antisemitic vandalism at the public, county-owned facility.
“It’s despicable. The county condemns hate speech in the strongest terms,” said Ken Casparis, public information officer for Sacramento County. “Antisemitism, racism, hate, hate speech. None of that has any place in Sacramento County.”
The county said it will take at least another day to completely fix the damage vandals did to the course.
