Graffiti supporting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was spray painted on the side of an El Paso County high school over the weekend in the wake of its student newspaper’s .
“We support Trump” and “Trump for presidet (sic)” were painted in red, white and blue.
The Lewis-Palmer School District says it is working with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office to investigate the vandalism.
“They, the school and our (school resource officer) with the El Paso County sheriff are looking at the security tape and investigating who did it,” Julie Stephen, a district spokeswoman, told The Denver Post on Monday.
Stephen said investigators haven’t released any information on whether the suspect or suspects appear to be students or adults.
Staff at the Palmer Ridge High School student newspaper, The Bear Truth, received backlash , the Democratic presidential nominee, last month.
“Some of the stuff we’ve seen on Facebook is quite disgusting,” Evan Ochsner, a Palmer Ridge senior and co-editor-in-chief, at the time. “There were a lot of personal attacks that seemed out of bounds. It almost borders on bullying.”
The Gazette also reported that parents e-mailed the school and used social media to say the editorial was inappropriate for a student publication, that Trump should have been given equal space and that the paper’s staff should be suspended.
Naysayers also said the student paper’s adviser Tom Patrick was a “communist” and a “socialist,” according to The Gazette, and some accused him of indoctrinating students, calling for his job.
The Bear Truth editorial said Trump “completely lacks the experience and temperament to be president.”
“A career politician, Ms. Clinton is the embodiment of everything that many Americans were hoping to avoid in this election,” the editorial said. “However, there is no reasonable alternative to Ms. Clinton, and her lifelong dedication to public service is why she is the only viable choice for president.”
Officials have not said if the vandalism is directly related to the editorial.
“We can’t say it is related,” Stephen said on Monday. “It is the same time in past election years where we have had something like this happen before. It’s not totally unusual to have this happen during an election year.”
The vandalism was first reported Monday .
