Leah Grossman was having trouble with her homeowners association, but the 48-year-old West Hollywood resident said she never thought one of her board members would draw what appeared to be a swastika on her belongings late at night. .
The incident was captured on video, Grossman said, when one of his neighbors, then a member of the association's board of directors, approached his front door, removed the cap of a black marker and drew a symbol on a box of mineral water that he had left outside his door.
“I was very shocked,” Grossman, who is Jewish, told the Times. “This panic just took over me. I was shaking.”
The incident came after clashes with the now-former board member, including accusations (from both sides) of exchanging vitriolic words and alleged complaints about Grossman hanging an Israeli flag on his balcony.
Her first thought after the overnight incident, she said, was relief that her two children, ages 9 and 11, were already in bed.
She was also getting ready for bed on Dec. 5 when, shortly after 10 p.m., she said she received an alert on her phone that someone was at her front door.
The alert caught his attention because not only does he live in a corner of the condo building that receives little to no foot traffic most days, but it was also late at night.
The woman, who is Jewish, says the incident caught on video came after confrontations with her homeowners association.
In the video, a man identified by Grossman as neighbor Mark Nakagawa is seen walking to his door, removing the cap from a black marker and drawing on a case of mineral water that Grossman had forgotten to bring earlier that day.
After witnessing this on the front door camera, Grossman opened the door.
“Is there a problem?” The woman is seen in the video saying as Nakagawa walks past her door.
“No,” he is heard saying.
“Is that the Nazi sign?”
“No.”
“What's that?”
“I'm just passing by, I don't know,” he replies.
“I saw you,” Grossman says. “I have a camera. What is that? What did you draw there?”
“I don't know,” Nakagawa replies before walking away.
The incident, Grossman said, left her distraught.
The next day, he filed a report with Los Angeles police, according to records shared with The Times. Police refused to pursue the case, he said.
However, her homeowners association took some action after she contacted the management company saying she was afraid of having contact with Nakagawa.
Nakagawa did not respond to multiple messages seeking comment from the Times.
A few days after the incident, Grossman received a letter from her homeowners association's legal counsel, informing her that Nakagawa had agreed to resign from the board and also to stay away from Grossman or anyone who visited her in the building.
“This is to clarify that Mr. Nakagawa's alleged conduct was in his individual capacity, not in his capacity as a member of the Association's Board of Directors, and such conduct was not expressly or implicitly authorized, sanctioned, endorsed, ratified or consented to by another way by the board,” the letter reads.
Grossman said he had clashed with his HOA in the past, especially over his complaints that necessary repairs were not made. He had clashed during a HOA meeting in particular with Nakagawa when he told the board member that he felt the HOA was being run like a “fascist dictatorship.”
She claimed that Nakagawa called her a fascist for hanging an Israeli flag on her balcony.
Grossman said Nakagaw tried to contact her after the Dec. 5 incident, but she refused to respond to the messages and hung up on him.
Nakagawa told KCAL that Grossman called him a fascist and told the news station that he wanted to “educate” Grossman about the origins of the symbol, referring to the Buddhist “manji” symbol.
The manji symbol, which resembles a swastika, faces the opposite direction. The symbol Nakagawa drew on the box of mineral water, although it looked like a swastika, was not drawn precisely like either one.
“The way I did it, in retrospect, was not the right way to do it,” he told the station.
Grossman said he didn't believe the motive. He noted that his flag comment came days after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas.
“I'm personally afraid of him and I know that may sound dramatic,” he said. “I just want to be left alone.”
