Suspect busted in S.F. French school graffiti vandalism

A 44-year-old man was arrested on suspicious of scrawing a Five Percent Nation symbol this week on the playground at San Francisco's French American International School. Officials covered the graffiti with a tarp Tuesday. less A 44-year-old man was arrested on suspicious of scrawing a Five Percent Nation symbol this week on the playground at San Francisco's French American International School. Officials covered the graffiti with a ... more Photo: Evan Sernoffsky Photo: Evan Sernoffsky Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Suspect busted in S.F. French school graffiti vandalism 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

San Francisco police arrested a 44-year-old man Wednesday suspected of spray painting a symbol on the French American International School in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood earlier this week that set off a brief panic after initial reports mistakenly linked the graffiti to the terrorist group ISIS.

Edward Vanwright, a registered sex offender described by police as a transient, was taken into custody without incident near Masonic Avenue and Fulton Street on suspicion of misdemeanor vandalism and trespassing, said Officer Grace Gatpandan, a police spokeswoman.

Because of his past criminal history, he was also booked on suspicion of of being a sex offender on school grounds, Gatpandan said.

The arrest stems from a perplexing symbol found spray painted on a playground wall at the school at 150 Oak Street. The symbol, a star and crescent surrounded by an eight-pointed star with the number seven in the middle, sent up red flags after it was first discovered and some media outlets mistakenly reported it was a depiction of an ISIS flag.

Police said they were investigating the incident as a possible hate crime, partly because the graffiti was found at a French school so soon after the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris.

It turned out, however, that the symbol is actually the iconography used by the Five Percent Nation, a Nation of Islam offshoot started in the 1960s in Harlem, New York, by a student of Malcolm X, police said after doing a presumably brief Google search.

Investigators found surveillance footage of a person of interest entering the playground the night before the symbol was discovered and distributed images of the man seen in the video to officers who recognized Vanwright on Wednesday.

There wasn’t enough evidence to charge Vanwright with a hate crime, Gatpandan said, and investigators found no connection to terrorism.

Kale Williams is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kwilliams@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfkale