Story highlights Chicago Police say a synagogue was vandalized 
 
 A Rice University statue was defaced, and New York subway riders encountered hateful graffiti 
 
 (CNN) Police are investigating a flurry of swastika vandalism over the weekend in three major US cities. 
 
 Chicago Police released a surveillance video Saturday that shows a man smashing the front window of a synagogue and placing swastikas on the front door. 
 
 In the video, the suspect pulls up to the synagogue curb in a dark-colored SUV just after midnight, places the stickers on the front door and then breaks the glass with a metal object. He then gets back in the car and flees the scene. 
 
 Chicago Police release pictures of smashed synagogue window and hate crime stickers 
 
 The man is wearing dark clothing and a dark head mask, police said. 
 
 The incident is being investigated as a hate crime. 
 
 Read More ||||| Mr. Nied, 36, was returning home from his work as a sous-chef around 7 p.m. and boarded the train at 42nd Street. He said in a phone interview that his reaction to the graffiti, which he noticed immediately, must have been written on his face, and he soon attracted the attention of another commuter. 
 
 “There was a lady sitting across from me under the map, and she said, ‘Oh that’s absolutely horrible,’” he said. “‘Do you think there’s any way we can erase it?’” 
 
 Mr. Nied had many times used a Sharpie when he had meant to use a dry-erase marker, and he knew from experience that alcohol would work to erase the graffiti. 
 
 “A light bulb went on, and I just asked, ‘Does anyone have hand sanitizer?’” he said. 
 
 Mr. Nied and several other commuters began to wipe away the graffiti, their actions captured in photographs taken by Mr. Locke, who wrote on Facebook about his experience. By late Sunday afternoon, more than 518,000 people had reacted to the post on Facebook, and the post had been shared more than 354,000 times. 
 
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 “I’ve never seen so many people simultaneously reach into their bags and pockets looking for tissues and Purell,” Mr. Locke wrote. “Within about two minutes, all the Nazi symbolism was gone.” 
 
 Mr. Nied said that the episode had lasted less than five minutes and that the passengers were able to erase the graffiti before the train reached 96th Street. He returned a bottle of hand sanitizer to one of the riders, apologizing for having used most of it. 
 
 “We sat down and glanced around at each other and settled back into the commute,” he said. 
 
 Both men said they understood that there might be skepticism about their accounts. 
 
 “I understand the criticism, but unfortunately, I don’t have an answer for it,” Mr. Locke said. “I would probably be suspicious, too, if I didn’t take the pictures.” 
 
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 Detective Ahmed Nasser of the New York Police Department said that while the episode had not been reported on Saturday, other reports of anti-Semitic graffiti had been logged recently: A recycling container downtown was reportedly defaced with the words “Jews are a virus” in black ink in January, and swastikas were found etched on a northbound F train this month. 
 
 A separate episode, in which a passenger on a B train saw that a swastika on an American flag had been transformed into a message of love, drew a comment from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Sunday. 
 
 On Saturday night, Mr. Nied sent a text to his wife, Jacquline, and to a friend with a photograph of the graffiti, but he did not consider the prospect that someone else might have taken photos. He said it had not even crossed his mind until more than an hour later, when his wife looked at her phone. 
 
 “She said, ‘Dude, you’re going viral,’” he recalled. 
 
 He added: “It was a very New York moment in that we all came together, we all teamed up, and then we settled back down. I don’t think any of those people really spoke, truth be told. Everyone kind of just did their jobs of being decent human beings.” ||||| Chicago Loop Synagogue vandalized with swastikas 
 
 A hate crime investigation is underway after the front window of the Chicago Loop Synagogue was smashed by a vandal who affixed swastikas to its front entrance early Saturday. 
 
 Officers responded at 12:20 a.m. to a call of “criminal damage in progress” at the temple at 16 S. Clark St., according to Chicago Police. 
 
 Surveillance video shows someone getting out of a dark-colored SUV, possibly a Toyota Highlander, and placing two swastika stickers on the front doors, police said. Then he takes out a metal object and smashes a plate glass window. 
 
 The suspect is described as a white male wearing dark clothing and a dark face mask, police said. 
 
 Community activist Raul Montes Jr. on Sunday announced a reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the vandal. 
 
 The American Jewish Committee’s Chicago office condemned the attack, saying the incident comes amid a rise in incidents of anti-Semitism across the country. 
 
 “The Chicago Jewish community will not be intimidated by anti-Semitic attacks on a house of worship,” AJC Chicago Director Amy Stoken said. “The right of all religious groups to practice their faith without fear is a fundamental American value. Chicagoans must speak together clearly that the hatred behind this destructive behavior will never be accepted.” 
 
 No one was in custody Saturday night as Area Central detectives investigated the vandalism as a hate crime.
– Houston made headlines first over the weekend, after a swastika was drawn in chalk on Rice University's statue of William Marsh Rice on Friday night. As CNN reports, it was the first of three such incidents to occur in different pockets of the country over a roughly 24-hour period. On Saturday Chicago police shared a video that depicts a man who drove up to the Chicago Loop Synagogue and put two swastika stickers on its door. The Sun-Times reports police were alerted to the incident just after midnight Saturday and found a window smashed. That evening, New York City subway riders came face-to-face with a slew of swastikas. Rider Gregory Locke describes getting on the No. 1 train and seeing swastikas written in Sharpie on the windows. "The train was silent as everyone stared at each other, uncomfortable and unsure what to do," he writes in a Facebook post that includes photos of the incident; it has gone viral with more than 500,000 reactions. The New York Times reports vile messages were also scrawled in the car, including "Jews belong in the oven." Upon one rider's suggestion that hand sanitizer would undo the hate, "I've never seen so many people simultaneously reach into their bags and pockets looking for tissues and Purel. Within about two minutes, all the Nazi symbolism was gone." The Times notes the NYPD and Metropolitan Transportation Authority received no reports of the vandalism, though the paper spoke with Locke and another rider who gave their accounts. (This man found swastikas in his boot prints.)