'I am absolutely disgusted': Swastikas spray painted on Riverview, N.B., playground

Parents who dropped their children off at an elementary school in Riverview, N.B., Monday morning were shocked when they saw what happened over the weekend.

Swastikas were spray painted on the Rebecca Schofield All-World Super Play Park at Frank L. Bowser Elementary School late Sunday night.

The park was built with community funds in honour of the late Becca Schofield who was known for her acts of kindness with her social media movement #beccatoldmeto.

It was a movement that spread around the globe, before she died of brain cancer five years ago.

Tosh Taylor, the vice president of the school’s home and school group was horrified by what she saw.

“We put a lot of love and sweat and tears into this and it's not just that my kids go the school here, it's that we really put a lot into raising the funds to build this park and it's what the park stands for and what Becca stood for, kindness and this is the opposite of kindness,” said Taylor.

Becca’s mother Anne Schofield was not in Riverview on Monday, but did provide a statement to CTV News.

She said the family is extremely saddened and disgusted that a park built by and for the community in honour of her daughter and her mission had been vandalized with symbols of hate.

“The Schofield family condemns antisemitism, hate, and discrimination in all its forms and we hope the culprit will come forward,” said Schofield. “Thank you to the Anglophone East School District and Frank L. Bowser School staff for their quick action in covering the vandalism and working to remove it.”

District superintendent Randy MacLEAN visited the school in the morning and later sent a memo to parents.

“The content this morning was quite shocking. It's not something we've seen, or I've seen since I've been in New Brunswick, so the content itself is troubling,” said MacLean.

It was also troubling for Lara Lavoie who has two kids at the K-5 school.

“My son is old enough that he understands what that symbol means and he was confused as to why somebody would do that to his playground. It's really heartbreaking,” said Lavoie.

Lavoie said what it makes it worse is that it was Becca’s park that was targeted.

"It does because this park represents kindness and doing the right thing and that is not what happened last night," said Lavoie.

The RCMP are investigating the incident and MacLEAN said a person was captured on video surveillance.

This isn’t the first time the park has been the target of vandals.

Last June, Taylor spoke to CTV News about how the play ground was vandalized with graffiti, used for late night parties and even used as a washroom.

She’s pleading with the district to provide more security.

Parents have raised money for a security guard, but Taylor said they haven’t received the go-ahead from the district yet.

“We need security there. Again, we're not asking for them [the district] to pay for it, we're just asking for approval for security to be on site three times a night,” said Taylor.

The district says it's working with the town about enhancing security possibilities at all schools in Riverview.

“We’re looking at several scenarios. I don’t want to pre-cursor anything, but we’re looking, as we do with all of our schools, not only Frank L. Bowser, but all of our schools in terms of what security looks like,” said MacLEAN.

Work crews had most of the graffiti covered up or removed before lunchtime.

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