By Mark Reynolds
In the early hours of December 9 vandals defaced a trailer used by the Marlborough Fire Department for hauling equipment. The trailer was parked in their parking lot and vandals spray painted the words “End Fascism” and an enclosed A, long held to be a symbol of anarchism. According to Wikipedia this symbol, “has been established in global youth culture since the 1970s.” Cindy Milstein, a member of the Institute of Anarchist Studies, writes that the A represents the Greek anarkhia (‘without ruler/authority’), and the circle can be read as the letter O, standing for order or organization, a reference to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s definition of anarchism from his 1840 book What Is Property?: “as man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.”
Marlborough Police Chief Gerald Cocozza said the incident at the Marlborough Fire House was reported to his department at 11:15 a.m. on December 9.
“I am going to assume it happened in the overnight hours of Friday into Saturday,” he said. “It is being investigated but we have no leads. We’re trying to recover video from a surrounding house. This is one of three places that political graffiti occurred. It was on the same night, all in the same area, Orange Street, Grand Street and Western Avenue with the same symbols.” He noted that at the other two locations it was political yard signs for Trump or Biden that were spray painted. All three incidents happened within a 90 minute time frame.
Cocozza said if caught the perpetrators would be charged with criminal mischief.
“Depending on the dollar value of the damage would determine if it’s a misdemeanor or a felony,” he said. “Individual charges on each one could facilitate a decent size arrest for someone, if it was one person that was responsible for all three.”
Marlborough Fire Chief Erick Masten said they were able to remove the spray paint, “but it’s going to take a certain amount of repair to restore it to where it needs to be. The cold weather is kind of hindering us getting it done.”
Chief Masten said he has not seen anything like this in his 21 years of service.
“We’ve had no vandalism to the building or to any of the equipment,” he said.