Jenny Doty was walking to work Monday morning when she noticed some strange graffiti on a Campustown garbage can.

The message read “Muslims” and was surrounded by a red circle with a slash through the middle.

“It happened sometime over the weekend,” said Doty, manager of Vogue Vision, 223 Welch Ave. “It wasn’t there when we left work on Friday.”

She said she immediately called the Ames Police Department after she noticed the sign. Doty said she thought the sign was placed there because of the amount of traffic that would see it on the way to and from the Towers residence halls.

“This is a very immature act,” she said.

Sgt. Mike Johns, Ames Police Department, said officers took down two signs in the area of Vogue Vision at 10:30 a.m. One of the signs was on Lincoln Way and Lynn Avenue. The other was located behind the Vogue Vision building.

“This type of thing is very hard to investigate,” Johns said. “Officers will try, but there are no witnesses and we have no ideas of who did this right now.”

Johns said the First Amendment makes it difficult to claim the sign was illegal.

“To consider it a hate crime, there has to be some way of carrying out the threat,” he said. “From here, they obviously can’t destroy Islam.”

Johns said it is difficult to consider the message a slur because the “message could be interpreted in a lot of ways.”

He said the department will not let the graffiti slide.

“We obviously won’t let it continue if we do find out who is doing this,” he said.

Dennis Peterson, director of International Education Services, said the Muslim community on campus does not feel threatened.

“All of the contacts I have had with the Muslim Student Association and the International Student Council have said they feel they are supported by the community here in Ames and on campus,” he said. “This is an isolated incident, and I don’t think this will change their feeling too much.”

Peterson said the Muslims have been made to feel comfortable in Ames.

“They know there are people around the country acting out against Muslims right now,” he said, “but they don’t feel this represents the vast majority of the Ames community.”

Muslim students and faculty have been advised to report any act of threats or harassment, he said.

Incidents occurring on campus should be reported to the Department of Public Safety.

Off-campus incidents should be reported to the Ames Police Department.