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Calgary police believe the owners of an SUV found covered in hateful and anti-Muslim graffiti in Rundle Thursday were targeted based on their ethnicity.

Early Thursday morning, a grey Infiniti SUV parked in the 2200 block of 48th Street N.W. was sprayed with racist phrases mentioning Islam and people from the Middle East, police said in a release Friday.

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The vehicle was also scratched with a key and the windows were smashed.

Senior Const. Craig Collins, hate crimes coordinator with the Calgary Police Service, said it is believed the owners of the SUV — a Syrian family who live at the house where the vehicle was parked — were the targets of the graffiti and investigators are treating the incident as a hate crime.

“This isn’t a victimless crime, that’s not how the police service sees it,” Collins said. “It’s a heinous crime which not only targets the individual, but sends a really impactful message into the community and it sends a message of fear.”