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Montgomery County police seek public aid to find suspects in an anti-Muslim graffiti incident at Walt Whitman High School, with rewards offered for helpful tips.
BETHESDA, Md. — Montgomery County police are asking for the public’s help as they search for the suspects who spray painted anti-Muslim graffiti on a wall at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda.
A photograph from the Council on American-Islamic Relations showed that the suspects scrawled “[slur] Muslims” and “Nuke Palestine.”
Aiman Shalabi is the father of a student at Whitman High School. He says his son is typically chatty but that changed on Friday.
“He was completely stoic. He was scared. He shut down. He didn’t want to address it,” he explained. “He said — I don’t want to talk about the bad racist issues.”
The graffiti has since been covered up by school staff, but police noted that it will need to be professionally removed.
Shalabi says the emotional and spiritual damage has been done.
“People that come from other places deserve the humanity and morals and compassion and the love and kindness that everybody has. Judge people based on who they are,” he said.
Zainab Shaudry heads the Maryland chapter of CAIR, the Coalition of American-Islamic Relations. She says students have shown incredible resilience.
“When there’s no choice but to be strong, you have to be strong,” she explained. “One of the students I had a conversation with said something really powerful. He said that we don’t want people to get in trouble. We want them to understand what they did was wrong.”
“If you come forward, we’ll forgive you,” he said.
According to police, surveillance video shows multiple people running toward the football field around 2:30 a.m.
They do not have descriptions of the suspects, however.
They say the Victims’ Rights Foundation has donated an additional $2,000 for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the suspects.
If you have any information that may help police in their investigation, visit the Crime Solvers of Montgomery County website and click the link that says www.p3tips.com.
You can also call 1-866-411-8477.
Tips with information leading to the arrest may be eligible for a reward from $250 to $10,000 through Crime Solvers.
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