The graffiti at Vickie Powers Park was “outright disgusting,” said Rose Marion, the 36-year-old Rapid City resident who came across the graffiti with her children around 2:30 p.m. Friday.

The vandalism said “Whites only” and “No Indians,” and had images of swastikas and lightning bolts used by the SS, the organization that ran the Nazi's concentration camps.

Marion posted photographs of the graffiti on her Facebook page, and the images were soon spread across various social media platforms by locals and people across the country.

“Not only because my children are Native, but because this is a place for our kids to be kids. I was disgusted,” Marion said.

She said she teaches her children about racism and the importance of respecting others.

“I don’t censor my children form these things,” Marion said. “If I don’t educate them, they learn from society.”

Marion thanked “all those who came together for the kids and made their playground theirs again.”

Rapid City police officers arrived to clean up the graffiti Saturday morning, but found that someone had already taken care of most of the vandalism, the department wrote on its Facebook page.

The department described the vandalism as “extremely racist graffiti” and said, “To be clear: There is no room for this kind of behavior or mindset in our city.”

Mayor Steve Allender responded with a long Facebook post that condemned the graffiti but also focused on the response to the graffiti, which included people sharing the images on social media and some people calling Rapid City “Racist City.”

Allender wrote that the graffiti doesn’t represent the city and its residents, that the vandals want to gain attention through social media, and that anyone could have created the graffiti.

“The response to it was really just to come out an condemn all of us,” Allender told the Journal.

“I believe part of my duty is to offer a chance for people to keep things in perspective,” he said when asked why his post didn’t just focus on condemning the graffiti. “It’s me saying, ‘keep in mind, one idiot wrote these comments and that person should not be given the power to speak for all of us in Rapid City.’”

He said some people thought he was minimizing the graffiti, but others were happy with his message, and that in hindsight he may have written something different. He said his comment about how anyone could have made the graffiti wasn’t saying that a Native person made it, but that anyone, such as a teenager, could have.

Police are working to identify the suspect or suspects who created the graffiti, the department wrote on its Facebook page. Anyone with information should call (605) 394-4131 or send an animus tip by texting the letters “RCPD” and information to 847411.