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Pair sentenced for hate graffiti and starting fire

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—Two Pacifica men will serve time in jail for the damage they caused to a Pacifica high school.

Twenty-year-old Robert Polk Jr. and 21-year-old Daniel Walsh were sentenced to 90 days in jail Feb. 11 after pleading no contest to one count each of misdemeanor vandalism.

The two men were arrested a day after a fire was set last April at Pacifica’s Oceana High School.

In addition to the damage caused by the one-alarm fire, graffiti was scrawled on a wall that included swastikas, references to white power and hate speech against gays and ethnic and racial minorities.

Prosecutors say they did not charge Polk or Walsh with a hate crime because they could not prove that either man was responsible for the graffiti.