Mill Valley Hate Crime Probed

MILL VALLEY, CA — Authorities are seeking the public’s help identifying a vandal in connection with an incident last week that is being investigated as a hate crime, the Mill Valley Police Department said.

Police on Wednesday released surveillance video of the vandal desecrating a racial justice art installation at Tamalpais High School authorities said occurred on the night of July 20.

The installation was vandalized for the second time in less than two months, The Marin Independent Journal reports.

The first such incident occurred in late May.

“Detectives are treating this incident as a hate crime and seek your assistance in identifying potential investigative leads,” the MVPD said in a statement.

The video shows the vandal spraying an unknown aerosol substance on a piece on display at the Mill Valley school titled “Perspectives: Past, Present and Future” at 11:11 p.m., police said.

The vandalized installation was discovered by an officer on the morning of July 22 according to police.

“Our officer discovered that the portion of the art that read “Black Lives Matter” on the “Present” door and “Equity” on the “Future” door had been damaged,” police said.

The community art project was created last summer amid a national reckoning on racial justice in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

It was constructed Sept. 3 using freestanding doors that serve as a blank canvas for community participation and as a metaphor to view systematic racism through perspectives of the past, present, and future, city officials said.

The project is the result of a collaboration between the Mill Valley Arts Commission and artist Zoe Fry.

Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact Sgt. Shaun McCracken at smccracken@cityofmillvalley.org, by phone at (415) 389-4228 or through the MVPD’s anonymous tip line by calling (415) 721-4547.