'Oil kills': Legislature's Anchorage offices tagged with graffiti

The Alaska Legislature's offices in Midtown Anchorage were painted with politically charged graffiti sometime in recent days, police said Tuesday.

Anchorage police spokeswoman Renee Oistad said an initial report of the incident was received just after 8:30 a.m. Monday.

"Several words including 'divest,' 'killers,' 'we kill,' and 'oil kills' were painted in several places on the walls of the building, windows, parking lot signs, and on the ground," Oistad wrote in an email. No arrests have been made in the case.

[Suspect in Anchorage locomotive graffiti vandalism is in custody]

Legislative Affairs Agency director Pam Varni mentioned the damage to the building at a hearing of the Legislative Council in Juneau Tuesday, telling lawmakers there was not yet an estimated cost attached to the vandalism.

Sen. Anna MacKinnon, R-Eagle River, asked Varni if surveillance video from the building had recorded the vandalism. Varni replied that interior and exterior security cameras had yet to be fitted at the building as part of a planned renovation.

"We do have armed security, but we do not have (camera footage) of that event," Varni said.

A repair crew visited the building Monday but had difficulty removing the graffiti, according to Varni. Instead, she said, tan paint was used to cover some of the graffiti as a "temporary measure."

Varni told legislators that the graffiti was apparently targeted at Wells Fargo — the building houses a branch of the bank on its ground floor. After the meeting, Rep. David Guttenberg, D-Fairbanks, questioned that contention, suggesting to a reporter that the messages could have been directed at the Legislature instead.

Varni didn't immediately respond to an email sent Tuesday requesting comment on the case.

The vandalized building became the Legislature's Anchorage base in October following a move from the LIO building on Fourth Avenue downtown. Lawmakers had moved into the remodeled Fourth Avenue building in 2015.

Reporter Nathaniel Herz contributed information to this story.