Police investigating white supremacist graffiti painted on Waterbury Dam

July 2, 2020  |  By Lisa Scagliotti

Spots where graffiti was removed can be seen on the Waterbury Dam on Wednesday. State police photo

UPDATE, July 2: This story has been updated with information on the Patriot Front, similar incidents in Hinesburg and recognition from a national civil rights group.

Graffiti identified with a white supremacist hate group was discovered this week painted on the side of the Waterbury Dam and Vermont State Police say they are investigating the incident. 

“The graffiti was discovered by a worker at the dam this week,” Trooper Neil Carey said in a news release Wednesday. “The graffiti was painted on the east side of the dam, a location that has little visibility to the public and is not viewable from the water.”

The discovery was reported to police on Wednesday, police said. 

The statement did not provide details of any messages contained in the graffiti. It was identified as coming from the hate group Patriot Front, police said. 

State Police spokesman Adam Silverman said the images included the group’s name in large letters and a fist symbol associated with the group. 

Carey said it appeared to have been applied using a stencil, “allowing the offender to apply the images quickly then leave.”

The area where this occurred has no video surveillance and police said there are no known witnesses or suspects.

Police released a photograph with Carey’s report showing the areas where the graffiti was removed on Wednesday by workers from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources. Silverman said no photos of the original vandalism would be released. 

“The photos we have are part of the ongoing investigation, so we won’t be able to release them at this time,” he said. 

Silverman added that he hoped news organizations would refrain from publishing such images “to avoid amplifying the white supremacist messages and giving the hate group exactly what it wants.”

The nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center monitors the activities of more than 1,600 domestic hate groups and extremists including the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi organizations. Its website describes the Patriot Front as a white nationalist hate group that broke off from Vanguard America following the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017. 

“Patriot Front focuses on theatrical rhetoric and activism that can be easily distributed as propaganda for its chapters across the country,” the Southern Poverty Law Center site says. “PF was one of a number of hate groups that sought to recast itself as mainstream, patriotic Americans by dressing up their propaganda and rhetoric in Americana.”

The Waterbury Dam graffiti comes just one month after stickers promoting Patriot Front turned up in Hinesburg. On June 1 and June 4 Hinesburg Police Chief Anthony Cambridge took to social media to report that stickers from Patriot Front were found in several locations in the community. He said the group and its messaging were not welcome. “We will not tolerate any form of racism period,” the chief wrote. “The Hinesburg Police Department wants to stress that we do NOT support, nor will we tolerate, any Patriot Front stickers being placed around our town.” 

One of the instances involved a sticker “strategically placed” on a pride flag at the United Church of Hinesburg, Cambridge said, emphasizing that defacing public property is considered vandalism. And the flag incident takes it a step further. “The person(s) responsible will be charged as committing a hate crime,” he wrote. 

So far, no arrests have been made in the Hinesburg cases. 

The stickers and graffiti in Hinesburg and Waterbury match the Southern Poverty Law Center’s description of Patriot Front’s tactics. It says that the group whose manifesto calls for the creation of a “white ethnostate” typically engages in activism such as anonymously posting flyers or dropping banners off buildings or overpasses. “When PF orchestrates protests or public appearances, they are typically tightly choreographed and scripted to maximize propaganda value,” the center explains. 

State police have informed the Vermont Attorney General’s Office about the incident under the Bias Incident Reporting System, a protocol created in 2019 following an investigation into racial harassment of former state representative Kiah Morris of Bennington. 

The system encourages law enforcement and prosecutors to share reports of bias incidents with the Civil Rights Unit of the Attorney General’s Office for potential civil investigation and remedy.

The Waterbury incident on Thursday drew a rebuke from the national American Muslim civil rights organization, The Council on American-Islamic Relations. It issued a statement condemning the graffiti in Vermont as well as an incident in Nebraska. 

“Community responses to hate incidents must show that we all stand against bigotry and that we will not allow displays of racism in our communities,” said council spokeswoman Ayan Ajeen. She said the organization and the American Muslim community stand “in solidarity with all those challenging anti-Black racism and white supremacy.”

The other incident the group referenced involved Nazi swastikas and other racist symbols painted on grass at a park in Omaha and discovered on June 30.

Vermont State Police are asking the public for assistance in their investigation of the Waterbury incident. Anyone with information is asked to contact the state police in Middlesex at 802-229-9191.