A pro-Palestinian mural in downtown Olympia outside of the Stonewall Youth building for LGBTQ+ youth was burned in an arson last week in the latest of a string of vandalism, police and the youth-led organization said.
People were inside the building when someone set fire to the mural around 5 a.m. on Aug. 27, Stonewall Youth said in a Facebook post. The fire was immediately noticed and put out.
It appeared that someone set a pile of debris on fire below plywood panels that were covering the mural at the time, Olympia police Lt. Paul Lower said. The flames climbed up the plywood and damaged the mural underneath before the blaze was put out.
This was the eighth time the mural has been vandalized since it was put up last year, the mural committee said on its website, including in October and December.
There was only superficial damage to the building, but it will “require some hefty repairs to the mural,” Stonewall Youth said. Responding fire crews had to cut away plywood paneling that had been laid in front of the mural to protect it during repairs from a previous vandalism.
The mural created by Olympia artists and community members read “Free Palestine” with fists breaking free of their chains and children flying a kite — which the mural committee says Palestinian children often make from whatever they can find in the rubble — against the backdrop of the Palestinian flag.
A poem by Gazan professor and writer Refaat Alareer, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2023, stretches across the mural, beginning, “If I must die, you must live to tell my story …”
Last week’s arson was “preceded by months of hate and threats,” Stonewall Youth said. The building has had several windows broken, door locks destroyed and the outside vandalized.
“We will not give up on our mural, just like we will not give up on the Palestinian people,” the mural committee said.
The motivation for the arson is unknown, and it is unclear if the mural and its pro-Palestinian messaging, or the LGBTQ+ youth organization was the intended target of the arson, if there was one.
No suspect has been identified, Lower said, though police searched the area after the fire and canvassed nearby businesses for video surveillance.
What none of us has the right to do is silence someone else’s expression through vandalism, intimidation or violence, Olympia Mayor Dontae Payne said in a statement.
Lower said that because the arson took place at a building housing a central LGBTQ+ organization and burned a pro-Palestinian mural, police are investigating if this incident was a possible hate crime.
Anyone with information can call Olympia police at 360-753-8300.
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