Second Tampa Bay Area Church Vandalized With Swastikas, ‘Build Wall’ and ‘MAGA’

‘It Represents Hate and It Stands Against Everything We Stand For’

The Iglesia el Sembrador Wesleyano, a church in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood of Clearwater, Florida, was targeted by vandals this week with pro-Donald Trump and racist graffiti. It is the second reported incident of church vandalism in the Tampa Bay area since Donald Trump’s Electoral College win on November 8. The first church, similarly vandalized last month, primarily serves the LGBT community.

As reported by the local ABC affiliate, vandals scrawled swastikas, “MAGA” (Donald Trump’s campaign acronym for Make America Great Again) and “Build Wall” along the sidewalk and driveway of the church.

The church’s website advises that it has two pastors, husband and wife Luis and Angela Villavicencio. Luis was born in Venezuela and Angela was born in Colombia. According to ABC, Luis “moved to America to escape the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez… is grateful everyday he became an American citizen and is now dedicating his life to God and helping others in need.”

“It makes me extremely sad,” he said, video of the exchange and of the graffiti below. “I would like to have a word with them and see how we can stop this from happening. If there is anything we can do to help alleviate the situation we would be more than happy to do so.”

The church wasn’t the first place of worship to be vandalized in Tampa Bay since Trump’s Electoral College win. In mid-November, parishioners of the LGBT-inclusive King of Peace Metropolitan Community Church discovered swastikas and “MAGA” on their church’s driveway as well.

Both acts of vandalism occurred in Tampa Bay’s Pinellas County, and the Clearwater Police Department told ABC that they would be working with the appropriate departments to determine if the cases were linked. Trump reportedly won Pinellas County by 48.06 percent to Hillary Clinton’s 46.97 percent.

“We’re all Americans, there [are] no labels,” Pastor Luis Villavicencio said. “There are much better ways to express how you feel other than taking it [out] against churches and the community… It represents hate and it stands against everything we stand for.”

Though the next President of the United States has taken to Twitter to attack Broadway plays, television shows, airplane manufacturers and even private citizens, it remains unclear if he will utilize his social media to denounce acts of vandalism, at these churches and others across the country, clearly made in his name.