Activist groups in Phoenix were faced with a wave of vandalism on Sunday evening, when around 20 vehicles were found keyed with defamatory messages, some etched with hate symbols including the Star of David. The incident occurred near 55th Place and Shea Boulevard, following a protest against an event featuring the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Jonathan Greenblatt, who was speaking at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue. Sophie Levitt, co-founder of the Jewish organization Bafrayung Itst (Liberation Now), and a student at ASU, expressed her dismay at the vandalism, "It's truly disgusting to me to see it. It makes me sick to my stomach," Levitt said in a statement obtained by Arizona's Family.
Levitt, whose group rallied alongside local Jewish, Palestinian, Black, and, Indigenous communities, described the protest as peaceful. However, tensions rose when eventgoers exited the synagogue and engaged with the protestors. "They began yelling and disrupting, and making obscene gestures, saying inappropriate things," Levitt recounted in an interview.
The enduring fight against systemic racism was again highlighted by the reaction to the Memphis tragedy. Tyre Nichols's death reignited protests that have become a familiar echo of the public's demand for justice, much like those seen after the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King, "The violence of the protests fed upon the deep racial inequalities entrenched, in the city," according to Bloomberg. Then-President George Bush condemned the riots, while the resulting Christopher Commission, created in the wake of the King beating to examine LAPD methods, made limited impact on operational changes, though it did lead to the resignation of Police Chief Daryl Gates.
