Rabbi Shmulik Fogelman went to the Starbucks at 11 East Central St. Wednesday afternoon, not for coffee but to get a firsthand look at what he considers Jewish hatred.
Fogelman, the president of the Chabad of UMass Medical School, examined the acts of vandalism that had taken place at the Starbucks across from the main post office.
Police are investigating what they have termed "a vandalism and hate crime."
The locked front door had the words “Fre (sic) Palestine” in white spray paint.
Spray-painted on the drive-thru three-tier ordering menu, the drive-thru pickup window and a side brick wall were the words “Free Gaza.”
Scrawled in white spray paint on three side windows and covering the Starbucks logo were the words, "You make drinks 4 genocide." There was also a symbol of an “A” in a circle on the glass and this symbol is repeated in the smashed drive-thru ordering speaker screen.
Notes taped on the front door, drive-thru window and the smashed and spray-painted drive-thru screen all had the same message: “OUR STORE IS TEMPORARILY CLOSED. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience. We are working to reopen our store as quickly as possible.” (Update: the coffee shop reopened Thursday morning.)
“We can’t let people who do acts of terror roam around," Fogelman said, standing outside the vandalized coffee shop. "They must be caught. They must be put in prison. And it can’t be abided.”
Police learned of the spray-painted words about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday. In the late afternoon, a worker was cleaning the exterior of the building.
Detectives have released a surveillance camera image of a person considered a suspect. Anyone with information is asked to contact investigators at (508) 799-8651.
“Vandalism of any property, private or public, is never acceptable and will not be tolerated,” City Manager Eric D. Batista said.
Fogelman said, “Smashing into Starbucks and stealing things is one thing. That’s not what happened here. There are signs all over the place that are really supporting Hamas terrorists, supporting the murder of innocent people, supporting the beheading and burning of babies, and this is what it is. This is a part of that."