LAKEWAY, Texas — The Lakeway Police Department needs help catching a vandal that has been marking private and public property with anti-Semitic symbols across the area.
Lt. Jason Brown said the incidents first started in April and have taken place at 11 locations. The bulk have been in the Rough Hollow neighborhood along Highlands Boulevard.
The department provided KVUE with images of swastikas that had been splattered across three different locations in the neighborhood.
Brown noted that the symbols have consisted of swastikas, racial and anti-Semitic slurs and other profanities.
"We're not going to tolerate any instances of hate speech," Brown said.
A recent incident in the Rough Hollow Highlands subdivision was captured on surveillance video. In the video, a man is seen hopping out of a vehicle and proceeding to walk over to a parked pick-up truck and mark it before taking off in the same vehicle he pulled up in.
Brown said a swastika was drawn.
Brown said the department believes one person – likely the man in the video – is solely responsible for all the incidents, but investigators are not ruling out the possibility of others being involved.
"We've never had something quite as extensive as this case," Brown said. "We would try to charge this person with every possible offense that we could prove."
Lakeway PD said it is working with multiple agencies that are dealing with similar cases, but investigators are hoping now that the video has been released, that someone is able to identify the perpetrator.
"If they know the suspect, they may recognize him in the video or recognize his vehicle and be able to share that information with us," Brown said.
Anyone who has any information that can lead police to a suspect is urged to contact CID Sgt. Roman Pena at romanpena@lakeway-tx.gov or call 512-261-2884.