A man posted a video of himself on May 9 entering a Food 4 Less in a San Diego suburb wearing a face mask with a swastika on it.
The UK Daily Mail reports that the man, identified as Dustin Hart, walked into the Santee store on May 7 wearing the mask with a woman alongside him, who also was wearing a swastika mask. The two had used Velcro to attach a Nazi flag to their masks.
A cashier at the Food4Less can be seen confronting Hart, who uses the name Dusty Shekel on social media, telling him take off the mask. Hart replies that the First Amendment protects his right to wear the mask inside the store.
Two sheriff deputies were called, and they told Hart that he could be arrested for trespassing if he didn’t take off the mask because the store is privately owned.
“We have a Nazi for a governor,” Hart told the deputies, referencing California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat. “Now you guys are here, literally proving my point.”
At one point, the deputies tell him that the Nazi flag is offensive, prompting Hart to reply, “I see the LGBT flag and that is offensive to me and I don’t call the cops.” Hart also lamented the state’s ongoing shelter-in-place order as he argued with the officers, saying that he just wanted “to go back to work.”
Hart and the woman eventually removed the swastikas from their masks.
A Food 4 Less spokesperson told the San Diego Union-Tribune, “We always live by our core values which include honesty, integrity, respect, diversity, safety and inclusion. The situation that occurred last night at our Santee location did not fall in line with those values, which is why the local sheriff’s department was asked to get involved.”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center tweeted, “Shocking, one year after murderous attack in San Diego County synagogue, swastika openly worn in San Diego store.” The San Diego synagogue is a reference to the Chabad of Poway shooting that occurred in April 2019.
Shocking, one year after murderous attack in San Diego County synagogue, swastika openly worn in San Diego store.
https://t.co/KbVInvRefH via @MailOnline— SimonWiesenthalCntr (@simonwiesenthal) May 10, 2020
On May 5, a man walked around a Vons in Santee wearing what appeared to be a Ku Klux Klan hood. A customer at the Vons, Alisa Wentzel, told CNN, “I just remember feeling so heartbroken, so hopeless and then also just really upset that this would happen in the community that I raise my family in. I was just in utter shock and disbelief. I still feel that way.”
Anti-Defamation League San Diego Regional Director Tammy Gillies told the Union-Tribune that the recent Santee incidents show why hate needs to be condemned.
“You have to shine a light on this type of hate,” Gillies said. “Hate grows in the darkness when people don’t speak up.”
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