A woman found a racist note after her car was vandalized and robbed when she went for a hike in Fremont, Calif. wearing a bandanna to cover her head.
Nicki Pancholy of Milpitas, Calif., returned from her trek on Monday and found her car window shattered, her purse gone and a note calling her a “Hijab wearing Bitch,” and asking her to “get the f— out.”
Pancholy isn’t Muslim, nor does she wear a hijab. She says has been battling Lupus, which caused hair loss, and put the bandanna on her head as protection from the sun.
Fremont City Councillor-elect Raj Salwan called the note a hate crime and said it will not be tolerated in his city.
In a statement on Facebook, he blamed the turbulent political times for the crime.
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“Many of our neighbors, friends, and family fear the current climate in our country, and we must do our best to make sure everyone is respected,” he wrote.
“I think there’s a lot of insecurity right now…both economic and cultural. And some folks are feeling that they’re losing America as they remember it,” he told KPIX-5 News.
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Pancholy agrees.
When asked why she thought people would do this she replied: “Fear. I believe they’re being controlled by fear. I believe that fear has consumed them.”
Police in the area called the incident “disturbing,” and are looking for the vandal, or vandals.
“We are obviously very upset and saddened that this happened in our community,” Fremont police spokesperson Geneva Bosques told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Pancholy told a CBS affiliate she had been hiking in Mission Peak (just north of San Jose) every morning for 65 days straight before this happened.
“I did not come the next day for my hike because I was scared to come,” Pancholy told the Chronicle.
“I didn’t know who was watching me. I would like for the violence to end with me.”
Park officials are also looking into the incident and are standing behind Pancholy.
“Everyone is welcome, and this is a deplorable thing,” East Bay Regional park district spokesperson Carolyn Jones told the Washington Post. “It’s a priority of us to get to the bottom of this.”
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