By Laura Zuckerman
SALMON, Idaho, Feb 26 (Reuters) – The FBI on Wednesday
offered a $5,000 reward for help tracking down vandals who
spray-painted anti-Mormon graffiti on three churches in a spree
of defacements that left a predominantly Mormon town in
southeastern Idaho shocked and puzzled.
The phrases and graphics – which included inverted crosses,
“Die Mormons” and “Brigham Young was a rapist,” an epithet
against the early church leader – were emblazoned on doors and
sidewalks at three Mormon meeting houses, or churches, in the
town of Chubbuck.
The graffiti attacks, first noticed on Nov. 7, have
bewildered the town of some 14,000 residents whose culture is
largely shaped by the dominance of the Mormon faith, known
officially as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“It’s an organization of faith, and what was said are
potential threats,” said William Facer, spokesman for the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is seeking help in a
multi-state investigation into what it regards as a hate crime.
Law enforcement officials are not aware of another recent
case in which Mormon churches were the target of hate crimes in
a region that encompasses Utah, Idaho and Montana, Facer said.
Idaho is second only to Utah in its percentage of members of
the Mormon faith, whose worldwide adherents number 15 million.
Tensions over the church’s influence in Utah and in
contiguous Western states like Idaho and Nevada have
periodically erupted in anti-Mormon outbursts, said Philip
Barlow, professor of Mormon history and culture at Utah State
University.
(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho; Writing by Eric
M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
