1:50 p.m. UPDATE:

Here is a press release from the Brown County Sheriff’s Department: St. David’s Church News Release

Public Information Officer Greg Pittman said a state investigator will work with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to determine if this act is a hate crime.

If the FBI does determine the incident to be a hate crime, the agency will either take over the case or work in cooperation with the sheriff’s department, Pittman said.

Pittman said vandalism aimed at an entire group is rare for Brown County. Usually, officers respond to vandalism involving two parties, he said.

The only evidence the department has in this case is the spray paint, Pittman said.

“It remains to be seen whether we’re going to be able to solve this case or not. We just don’t know at this point,” he said.

If anyone has any information about this crime, contact the Brown County Sheriff’s Department at 812-988-6655 and speak with dispatch, available 24 hours a day.

“We want the community to call us with anything, no matter how small or irrelevant they think it is, because sometimes that’s how we solve these. It starts out as a very small, little item that someone thinks that probably doesn’t mean anything, but it could be something and it leads to something else,” he said.

12:24 p.m. UPDATE:

St. David’s Episcopal Church plans to leave a swastika, a gay slur and the phrase “Heil Trump” on the church until the end of the month to show the church is a safe place for all people, said the Rev. Kelsey Hutto.

“Symbols are what you make them,” Hutto said. “And we can be embarrassed, we can be angry, but what we’re choosing to do is we’re choosing to look at them as an encouragement of doing the right thing.”

ORIGINAL POST:

BEAN BLOSSOM — Parishioners of St. David’s Episcopal Church arrived for services Sunday morning to find three “tags” painted on their church: a swastika, “Heil Trump” and a gay slur.

The incident was reported to police early Sunday morning.

The Brown County Sheriff’s Department is investigating. An update on the case wasn’t immediately available this morning.

The Rev. Kelsey Hutto reported in an email that “anyone is welcome on the sacred ground of the church.”

“We are disappointed that our safe haven has been vandalized, but will not let the actions of a few damper our love of Christ and the world,” she said. “We will continue to live out our beliefs and acceptance of all people and respecting the dignity of every human being. We pray for the perpetrators as well as those who the derogatory marks were directed at.”

“This is only one image of a worldwide phenomenon in which we are dividing ourselves and the world from God,” Hutto said.

The Episcopal Church worldwide has openly accepted homosexual people since the 1970s, and in 2003, the church consecrated its first openly gay bishop. In 2015, the canons of the church were changed to make the rite of marriage available to all people, regardless of gender.

Messages of support and sadness for the church poured in from across the country in via social media, from other Episcopalian churches and individuals.  Several local people volunteered time and materials to clean it up.

According to the sheriff’s log, there were no other incidents of vandalism anywhere else in the county over the weekend.

In Bloomington late last week, the B-Line Trail was tagged with swastikas and “KKK” graffiti, and slogans were written on windows and door on the Democratic Party headquarters: #MAGA, #YUUGE, “Safe Spaces Aren’t Real” and “Hillary 4 Prison.”

This story will be updated.