Plaque Could Have Been Stolen as Hate Crime

Monday, 08 October 2007 8:37AM

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- A plaque taken from the foot of the Mount Davidson cross could have been stolen as a hate crime, according to the Council of Armenian-American Organizations of Northern California.

The memorial was in honor of the victims of the Armenian genocide, where as many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed between 1915 and 1917. It went missing September 23.

"One of our members went up in a routine maintenance and it was discovered that this plaque, which is three feet by four feet and weighs something under 200 pounds, was gone," said Council Chairman Chuck Paskerian.

Volunteers searching for the plaque over the weekend came up empty handed. Paskerian said whoever stole the plaque had one of two possible motives. Either they wanted to sell the metal, or they were angry about what the piece represented.

"The metal aspect of it, police feel is limited because it's not very accessible. It's at the top of Mount Davidson, it requires quite a climb to get up there, and this particular piece, which is very heavy and awkward, is worth only approximately $200 in the metal market," explained Pakerian. "Right at the time this was stolen, they were celebrating the anniversary of Armenia and on October 10th in the U.S. Congress a resolution is being proposed to recognize the Armenian genocide, and the Turkish government is very much opposed to this."

The Turkish government has refused to acknowledge that the mass killings were genocide.

(RdD)

Copyright 2007, KCBS. All Rights Reserved.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.