Laskey, who spent 11 years in prison after he threw swastika-etched bricks through Temple Beth Israel in Eugene, has not shied away from building a public profile since his release in late 2015. Marr and another man staged a public demonstration at the University of Oregon on Hitler's birthday, according to the Daily Emerald, the university's student-run newspaper. I'm interested in the counter-extermination of the Jews," Marr told The Oregonian/OregonLive, seated in his living room reclining chair with his dog Dieter in his lap. On a recent weekend, Marr, wearing a Santa hat, joined three other people at an Interstate 5 overpass in nearby Springfield, where they dropped a banner declaring, "It's OK to be white." During Holocaust Remembrance Day in April, a small group of people in Nazi regalia gathered outside of Marr's home in Springfield, which sits across the street from a children's playground and is a block away from an elementary school, with swastika flags and a sign that read, "The Holocaust is Hokum." "Frankly, and I'll tell you this right now. A swastika was painted on the outside of her bar along with the message, "We're watching you." She has also been outspoken in support of the antifa movement and its activism. Residents and business owners also awoke during that time to find the area leafleted with recruitment fliers that proclaimed, "Diversity is a code word for white genocide." Emily Nyman, an owner of Old Nick's Pub in the neighborhood, said her bar became one of the vandalism targets because she had previously banned a group of patrons who espoused white supremacist views. "If it hits our community, it hits everyone." The city's Whiteaker neighborhood, a vibrant arts and entertainment district, attracted a rash of Nazi-inspired graffiti in February. "We are definitely affected by it," she said. The vandalism and other hostility represent "an attack on the entire community, regardless of people's race or religion," said Margot Helphand, chairwoman of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Lane County. One employee of a local business told authorities that he came into work to find two nooses and a slur scrawled on his locker. Repugnant messages and symbols have defaced schools, churches and the federal courthouse. Vandals have struck cars, storefronts and public property with painted swastikas. This year has seen a flurry of racist and anti-Semitic activity across the city. Levin added that better reporting systems as well as an active regional group or "serial offenders" "can all drive local hate crime reporting way up." Starting this year, Eugene police officers have been strongly encouraged to record instances of hate-related graffiti they encounter during their work. You can use this form to tell us about a suspected hate crime incident.) Eugene officials attribute the city's disturbing lead position to a unique and longstanding system that encourages residents to report hate crimes. (The Oregonian/OregonLive has partnered with ProPublica and newsrooms nationwide to track hate crimes and bias incidents. In 2016, Eugene had more hate crimes than any other place in Oregon, said Brian Levin, director of the center. Statewide, hate crimes were up 60 percent in 2016 from the previous year, representing one of the largest increases of any state, according to an analysis of federal data by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. Officials said vandalism and graffiti made up 20 percent of the hate crimes reported between January and October. That stubborn legacy of bigotry persists in Eugene, where city officials this year have recorded nearly 60 hate crimes, up from 44 last year.
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