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FREETOWN — State officials are looking into who sprayed racist graffiti at the Watuppa Pond Reservation.
Katie Gronendyke, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Environmental Police, confirmed Tuesday that an investigation is ongoing. She said the case has yet to lead to any arrests.
The graffiti was found last Thursday by local members of the Wampanoag Tribe. The area in which the markings were found holds strong cultural and historic ties to the region’s Wampanoag community.
Several trees and structures on the reservation were marked with swastikas, the letters “KKK,” and several other unintelligible symbols.
The reservation, which straddles Fall River and Freetown, marks the second case of targeted hate speech graffiti to hit Southeastern Massachusetts in recent months. Approximately 60 headstones at Fall River’s Hebrew Cemetery were defaced with similar anti-Semitic markings in March.
According to Sgt. JT Hoar, the Fall River Police Department is still investigating the March incident. Hoar said Tuesday that no arrests had been made in that case either.
Mahtowin Munro, a spokesperson for the Native American advocacy group United American Indians of New England, likened the defacement of Jewish cemeteries to the recently discovered incident on the reservation.
“Wamanoag people in the region have worked for generations to protect and preserve Watuppa,” Munro said via email. “Defacing a site like that is despicable and is intended to be upsetting, much in the same way that white supremacists intend it to be upsetting when they burn Black churches in the South or deface graves in Jewish cemeteries.”
While she noted that anti-Indigenous racism has always been present in the United States, Munro said she has noticed an increase.
“There has been an overall upsurge of racist hate – both language and violence – in recent years, in particular following the election of [President Donald] Trump,” she said. “That racism is especially exacerbated now as thousands of Indigenous families are forcibly separated at the U.S.-Mexico border and put into concentration camps by federal agencies.”
According to a study released by the FBI, federal records showed a 17% uptick in reported hate crimes from 2016 to 2017 in the United States. Approximately 60% of these crimes targeted people of specific racial, ethnic or ancestral backgrounds.
The New England chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, an advocacy nonprofit formed to combat anti-Semitism, also referred to a “pattern” of hate speech being seen across the country.
“People are acting out on their hate and purposefully sending messages of hate and targeting groups,” said Robert Trestan, the ADL’s New England director. “Every act of graffiti, whether it's in a cemetery or on tribal land, is a message and it’s targeted.”
Trestan also urged members of the public with any information behind either incident to contact investigators.
“What we really need is for someone to be held accountable so the people who commit these acts understand there are legal and criminal consequences,” he said. “Someone out in the community knows who did it. If you believe in the values of the community, now is the time to come forward.”
Given the similarities between the incidents at the Hebrew Cemetery and the Watuppa Reservation, Hoar commented on some of the challenges investigators may face in trying to uncover evidence.
“I can’t comment on what (the Evironmental Police) are doing with the scene, but in our case we brought out different agencies to help with the forensic side of it. You just try to look for any fingerprints or class evidence to help with any kind of lead. ... Cases have been solved by simple pieces of evidence left behind, whether it’s a hair follicle or a spray-paint can.”