Campaign signs in Huntington Beach for state Sen. Dave Min‘s congressional bid were vandalized this week with racist, anti-Asian slurs, the Huntington Beach Police Department said.
Min, who is Korean American, is running in California’s 47th congressional district, which spans the Orange County coastline.
Investigators are looking into the case as a potential hate crime, according to police department spokesperson Jessica Cuchilla, noting that the investigation is ongoing.
A video shared by Min’s campaign on YouTube showed that the slurs were spray-painted onto the blue signs lining a roadway. According to his campaign, supporters living in the area discovered the vandalized signs while walking their children to school Tuesday morning.
Police were first alerted around 11:45 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 8, near Newland Street and Lamar Drive, Cuchilla said, where they found five to six signs vandalized with a derogatory slang term for an Asian person.
“Hate of any kind, directed against anyone, is unacceptable. Full stop,” Min said in a statement Tuesday.
Min connected the display of racism targeting his campaign to the rhetoric of former President Donald Trump, this year’s Republican presidential nominee.
“We have seen a sharp rise in hate in recent years due to the xenophobia and racism that have come to define Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. We’ve all seen and heard Trump’s anti-Asian rhetoric and his racist comments about Haitian immigrants,” said Min. “It is saddening, but not surprising, that we are seeing this type of anti-Asian hate in the immediate aftermath of the Trump MAGA event in Huntington Beach this weekend.”
A pro-Trump rally was held at the intersection of Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway in downtown Huntington Beach on Sunday, Oct. 6, according to social media posts. Cuchilla said the rallies have been occurring regularly for several weeks in the area. Trump was not in attendance.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for…
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