'Angry' Portland business owner concerned about vandalism of religious holiday displays

A Portland, Oregon, business owner’s store was vandalized a day after displaying religious-themed decorations in the front window. 

Kay Newell, the owner of Sunlan Lighting Inc., spoke with Fox Business about her store and explained that she wanted to represent a variety of religious traditions in her front window to hopefully foster peace in a time of turmoil. 

Newell said she put up the display the night before the vandalism occurred. 

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The store displays represented Kwanzaa, Buddhism, Jewish, Hinduism, Christian, Muslim, Native American, and other religions. Other windows in the shop showcase classic Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman.

"The person who broke my window was riding on a bike carrying a river rock," Newell said.

Although the Christian, Jewish and Muslim decoration display was vandalized, the other religious themed displays representing Kwanzaa, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Native Americans were not. She added that she believes it is no coincidence that there was damage to the particular display on Dec. 7, the first night of Hanukkah. 

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"That's the reason I believe that this was directed to the Jewish, Christian, Muslim window only," Newell said. 

"There was no graffiti. There was no other damage done. Like I said, we have two other windows that have a religious theme. One of them respects Kwanzaa, Native American--I even have an emblem for … ancient goddesses. In other words, many religions and Asian religions are also honored," she added. "Buddhism, Hinduism, and other representatives of Asian culture are in the other window. So the reason I believe that it was targeted–probably … my guess is the Jewish-Palestine conflict that is currently going on."

The concept behind the Jewish, Christian and Muslim display, she explained, is that "we're all children of Abraham," therefore, we should learn to get along and respect one another. The display included a menorah, a nativity scene, and an image of a man worshiping on a prayer rug.

"We don't have to agree with our beliefs in every aspect, but we all come from the same source. We're all children of Abraham. Live in peace," Newell said.

She added that this is an important time of year for so many different religious groups especially amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.

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"I believe this to be a hate crime. I don't know whether he's against any of the three or all three [religions]," Newell added. 

She said that when she saw her store windows smashed last week, it made her "angry," adding this is a common occurrence in the city. 

"We've had in this neighborhood and all of Portland, we've had people that do vandalism, they break windows sometimes to break in and steal things; sometimes because they're angry like they did downtown where they just took out just rows of big windows--people ran in and stole everything that was in the stores," Newell said.

She continued, "And the police were ordered to stand down and do nothing. They damaged our federal building and people watched when the feds stood up and said no. We've had neighbors that have had broken windows."

Newell told Fox Business that she had not yet filed a police report about the incident, but plans to file.

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When Fox Business reached out to the Portland Police Department, we learned that she still had not filed a police report about the incident.