Another swastika found at St. Cloud State
A swastika was found drawn on the wall of a residence hall elevator on Thursday afternoon.
Campus security, St. Cloud Police and local FBI officials are investigating the graffiti, along with more than a dozen similar incidents in the past two months.
Sgt. Jerry Edblad with the St. Cloud Police Department says at this point his department has decided to stop alerting the press when racist graffiti is found on campus.
"Our concern is that if we continue to put this out into the press, that it is making whoever is doing this kind of thriving off that," says Edblad.
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Edblad says St. Cloud police will send out public releases only if there's a break in the case. He says depending on the intent, the graffiti could be considered a hate crime, but at this point it's only considered misdemeanor vandalism.
Edblad says the fact that the St. Cloud State campus is closed for winter break doesn't help investigators much.
"You're still talking a significant number of people on the campus. Instead of having 18,000 suspects, you may have a couple thousand, so we're still a long way from solving this," says Edblad.
A community group is offering a $1,000 reward for information that might help solve the case.