Students and staff discovered more graffiti near school June 9, this time located by the athletic fields.
The graffiti, on the crew team’s trailer, football field retainer wall, road signs and a dumpster, features mostly random words and phrases such as “Honk if you like tacos” and “Swag.” The graffiti also includes satanic images and words such as “666,” “Hail Satan” and “Kill,” along with pentagrams and upside-down crosses. There are also more references to music, such as “Get Guap,” hip hop slang for earning money, “Mau5,” a reference to electro artist “Deadmau5,” and “Based God,” a nickname for rap artist “Lil’ B.” Some of the graffiti is signed “Neck Face,” the alias of a famous anonymous Californian graffiti artist.
The two recent occurrences of vandalism seem to be related, assistant principal Jerome Easton said.
“I believe both instances of graffiti were by the same person,” Easton said. “There were many similarities, such as the recurrence of ‘666’ and ‘Kill’ in the second incident.”
The graffiti on the crew team trailer also references cross-town rival Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, with phrases like “BCC all day” and “BCC is sorry about your rowing van.” Investigators are taking these references into consideration but haven’t ruled out the possibility that the perpetrators weren’t actually affiliated with BCC, Easton said.
Administrators have turned over the investigation to the Montgomery County police, Easton said. It was originally the school’s responsibility to investigate the incident because, unlike the previous incident, this vandalism occurred on school grounds.
“Whitman couldn’t do anything about the graffiti near the parking lot because it was off school property,” Easton said. “We’ve had a larger role in investigating this incident because it happened on school property.”
For now, Easton said he doesn’t view any of the messages in the graffiti as potentially dangerous to students.
“At this time I don’t believe any of the satanic messages are legitimate threats,” Easton said. “I think it’s just shock language. But we haven’t ruled anything out.”
