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For the second time in a week, vandals have lashed out at Bowie residents with attacks classified by city police as hate crimes.

Eleven vehicles were reported vandalized on Sunday in the Overbrook neighborhood with "nigger" carved into the driver's side doors of two vehicles, according to Bowie police reports. The vehicles were both parked in driveways on Ovalstone Lane, and owners of both vehicles are black.

Other words that were not racial in context were also etched into nine other vehicles in the neighborhood, City Manager David Deutsch said.

"Police continue to work in the area affected to hopefully deter any potential crimes," he said.

Mayor G. Frederick Robinson condemned the vandalism at a City Council meeting Monday night and council members briefly discussed ways to handle the incident in accordance with the city's hate crime policy. According to Bowie policy, the city has a zero tolerance stance on hate crimes and tries to offer assistance to victims of hate crimes. Councilman Dennis Brady (At-large) mentioned working with the Bowie Diversity Committee to organize a forum to address the issue.

Bowie Police Chief Katherine Perez said police are working with the community to find the people responsible for the two recent hate crimes.

Yorktown Elementary School was also vandalized on May 23 with swastikas spray-painted on the front and sides of the school.

The two incidents were less than a half-mile apart, leading police to look into the possibility of a connection, Perez said. She said the investigation is ongoing.

The Yorktown incident was the first hate crime reported in the city in two years. The two incidents in Bowie are the only hate crimes reported this year in county police District 2, which encompasses 134 square miles including Bowie, Upper Marlboro, Largo, said officer Evan Baxter, a Prince George's County Police Department spokesman.

The Prince George's County Criminal Investigation Division is investigating both incidents.

E-mail Andrea Noble at anoble@gazette.net.