Swastikas, blood trail in park near LA Holocaust museum spark manhunt, police say
Los Angeles police said they’re hunting for an injured man Monday after a trail of blood and what appeared to be bloody swastikas were discovered near the city’s Holocaust museum, according to several Southern California media reports.
The blood spatter was discovered Monday morning at a bathroom in Pan-Pacific Park in the city’s Fairfax District, not far from the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, KABC reports. Police said the situation is being treated as a potential hate crime, according to the TV station.
Police said they’re reviewing surveillance camera footage and cordoned the area off as bloodhounds hunted for a possibly injured person, KABC reports.
Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Tony Im said the blood was discovered about 6:40 a.m., KTLA reports. The TV station said video footage captured from the air showed symbols including swastikas painted in blood on a cement wall near a playground.
“There was a large amount of blood in the bathroom,” Im said, according to Patch. “The swastikas appear to have been done with blood, and they were about 12 inches by 12 inches.”
A parks worker relayed a similar story to KTLA.
“I saw the pool of blood in the restroom and it was awful,” said Elizabeth Raffels, a Department of Recreation and Parks employee, according to KTLA. “It was so much blood.”
The swastikas were found outside the restroom, CBSLA reports.
FOX 11 reported that the bathroom was at the Pan Pacific Senior Activity Center.
Aerial footage showed red shoes left behind at the scene, KTLA reported, and bloody footprints going from the bathroom toward a nearby 7-Eleven and then to a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf shop.
Meghan Aguilar, a Los Angeles detective, said it’s possible someone was hurt in the incident, according to KTLA.
“Perhaps they were injured, self-inflicted or accidentally injured,” Aguilar said, according to the TV station. “This is an area where we do have some homeless people that will come and sleep overnight so we’re obviously talking to that group to try and identify who’s injured or what happened.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2019 at 6:40 PM with the headline "Swastikas, blood trail in park near LA Holocaust museum spark manhunt, police say."
