WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (CNS) — Multiple vehicles in the West Hollywood area have been seen displaying “messages of antisemitism” and “incidents of hate speech in the community” this weekend, city officials said Sunday.
The city’s statement did not provide further details, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s West Hollywood station could not immediately be reached for comment.
“These reports are particularly distressing as we mark Harvey Milk Day,” according to the statement, which was posted on the city’s website.
Harvey Milk Day is celebrated each year on May 22, in memory of gay activist Harvey Milk, who was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a former city supervisor on Nov. 27, 1978.
In California, Harvey Milk Day was recognized by the state’s government as a day of special significance for public schools and the day was established by the California Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009.
“We celebrate Milk, who was Jewish and who was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California,” the city’s statement continued. “We will never forget the path he helped to build in rejecting discrimination and in embracing full civil rights.
“In honoring his life and in remembering how his life was cut short by hate-fueled violence, we must commit to standing together in rejecting hate. Hate has no place in West Hollywood.”
Anyone with information about the messages, or who sees a hate incident, was urged to call the West Hollywood sheriff’s station at 310-855-8850.