Police investigating hateful graffiti on Ottawa City Hall, courthouse

OTTAWA -

Ottawa police are investigating after someone spray-painted hateful and anti-Semitic graffiti on downtown buildings.

Police were first alerted to the graffiti at around 8:20 a.m. Monday, they said in a statement to CTV News Ottawa.

At the courthouse on Elgin Street, a homophobic message was spray-painted on one wall, while a swastika was painted on the provincial government sign out front.

A message targeting the mayor that said "Jim Watson is a fraud" was also spray-painted across the Heritage Building at Ottawa City Hall.

Speaking to CTV News Ottawa, the mayor said he wants to sit down and talk to whoever did it.

"Very troubled and angered by it. What would it take to motivate people to be that hateful in their hearts to spray homophobic slurs and swastika?" Watson said.

"We live in a caring society, but this type of ugliness rears its head from time to time, and we have to speak out against it, We have to let the police do their work and hopefully find the people and bring them through the judicial system and question why would they have such hate in their heart to attack someone who is Jewish, gay or racialized in our society?"

Andrea Freedman, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, condemned the graffiti.

"It is a sign and symbol of the systematic murder of six million jews and the terrorization of so many more, so to see that spray painted on the institution that upholds justice, a key Canadian value, is very distressing," Freedman said. "I would love to tell you that I was surprised, but I wasn’t. The horror never diminished, but surprised? I can't say that I was."

The Hate and Bias Crime Unit is investigating.

The graffiti has since been washed away.