Unknown vandals mangled a menorah display outside a Jewish family's home in Chandler, Arizona, twisting it into a swastika, ABC15 Arizona reported Friday. Police were called to Naomi and Seth Ellis' home at around 5:30 a.m. Friday and helped disassemble the Nazi symbol. An investigation into the incident has been launched. According to the report, Seth Ellis had built the 7-foot-tall menorah out of PVC pipes for his three children, who had asked for a holiday display similar to the neighbors' Christmas decorations. To their horror, on Friday, the family woke up to discover the menorah had been bent into the shape of a swastika. "Just waking up to see that first thing is kind of rattling," Seth told ABC15. "It just makes me sad and it makes me feel sick that's still how people look at the world in 2016." "I broke down in tears waiting for the police to come and hoping that my kids would not be awake to see it," Naomi wrote on her Facebook page, in a post showing the display before and after it was mangled. "We live in a great neighborhood with kind and welcoming neighbors. We never would have imagined that someone would spread so much hate here. I'm still not sure how I will explain this to [my children]. I'm not sure I quite understand it myself. ... How can people be filled with so much hate and violence? To think that someone would make such an effort to hurt and vandalize a family, is downright sickening," she wrote. The post quickly went viral, garnering an outpouring of outpouring of support from the local community. Dozens of people gathered at the Ellis' home on Friday to rebuild and relight the menorah, ABC said.
