Fremont city council candidate campaign signs defaced with swastika

Fremont Police are investigating after a city council candidate's campaign signs were defaced with a swastika.

In his bid for Fremont city council, Justin Sha expected a rough road, even some political maneuvering, but he never expected this.

Justin Sha, candidate for city council district 4 said, "It's like devil's horns, devil's beard and boom swastika."

Sha says someone took a pen to his campaign signs, defacing them with symbols of hate.

"I think there was some malicious intent," he said.

His father Ron was the first to notice.

"I was trying to even erasing it. But I can't there's still little things there," Ron Sha said. 

It was the use of the swastika that upset him most.  "Using this kind of symbol, an international recognized hate crime type symbol... it's just wrong. It's not the thing you should do to anybody. It doesn't matter if they agree with your view or not."

Fremont Police are taking the incident seriously and canvassed the neighborhood looking for witnesses to the crime.

Sha who is in a six way race for the District 4 council seat isn't pointing fingers. But he wishes the political landscape hadn't come to this.

"Why can't we have an election where people can put their message out there, have the voters listen to everyone's message and see who they want to vote for to represent them. Why do we have to undercut other people because we're afraid of the message that they bring?" Sha said. 

Sha plans to leave up the damaged signs. His father plans to surround them with American flags on Saturday as a symbol of resiliency.