Racist graffiti found on Catholic H.S. in Spring Garden

SPRING GARDEN -- Officials say someone spray painted a racial slur on the door of Hallahan Catholic Girls High School in Philadelphia's Spring Garden section early Thursday morning.

The vandalism took place on the 300 block of North 19th Street.

Police say a passerby noticed the graffiti and called them.

The police say they notified the school and the maintenance staff arrived and began removing the graffiti.

"I came and it had the graffiti on the door," maintenance supervisor Phil Moyer said.

Hallahan officials made sure to clean up the graffiti overnight so the girls wouldn't see it on their way into school this morning.

"You don't want the kids coming and seeing it. That's the main entrance. That's where they walk into school every day and we don't want that," Moyer said.

Parents say they're surprised something like this could happen at a school they say does so much to promote diversity.

"That's the one reason I brought my daughter here is because of the diversity. It's just a shame that one sick individual would come and do something like this at a girl's school," Stanley said.

"Hopefully they find out who did it; it's really unfortunate," Small said.

"I don't think it has anything to do with the kids or the school," Wurtenberger said.

Police are going over surveillance video for possible clues.