Dozens of Flags Are Burned At Veterans' Graves in Wash.

Many Replaced by Hand-Drawn Swastikas

San Juan County Sheriff Bill Cumming said of the charred remains of American flags in Orcas Island, Wash.: "This is not an act of free speech." (San Juan County Sheriff's Office Via Associated Press)

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Associated Press
Tuesday, May 29, 2007

ORCAS ISLAND, Wash., May 28 -- Vandals burned dozens of small American flags that decorated veterans' graves for Memorial Day and replaced many of them with hand-drawn swastikas, authorities said Monday.

Forty-six flag standards were found empty, and 33 more were in charred tatters Sunday in the cemetery, authorities said. Swastikas drawn on paper appeared where 14 of the flags had been.

Members of the American Legion on this island off Washington's northwest coast replaced the burned flags with new ones Sunday.

The vandals struck again on Memorial Day after a guard left at dawn, the San Juan County Sheriff's Office said. This time, the vandals left 33 of the hand-drawn swastikas.

"This is not an act of free speech. This is a crime," San Juan County Sheriff Bill Cumming said in a statement released Monday.

Investigators believe there is more than one culprit, based on the number of flags that were vandalized, Cumming said in a telephone interview. But authorities have no suspects, he said.

The sheriff said that deputies were trying to lift fingerprints off what little physical evidence they were able to recover.