Eastern Passage family victimized by racist graffiti
Posted Aug 11, 2011 05:12:22 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A woman in Eastern Passage says she and her family have been targeted by vandals who painted racial slurs and symbols outside their home.
Chantelle Paris said she woke up one day recently and looked out her window to see racial pejoratives and Nazi symbols in black spray paint on the mailboxes, street signs and road outside her house.
“We were a definite target of the crime,” Paris told News 95.7, Wednesday. “We’re the only visible minority on our street that I’m aware of. It was all arrows pointing to my house. It was right in front of my driveway and right across the stretch. In huge letters they wrote, not nice things.”
It happened on Osborn Drive and Romkey Drive on August 2 and was cleaned up the same day.
Paris says her family moved to the neighbourhood six months ago and up until last week they had felt welcome.
Now she’s says she’s concerned someone has a problem with her, her husband, and their four-year-old and three-week-old children.
Police said based on the evidence this is an incident of vandalism or mischief, not a hate crime.
“This type of petty vandalism does not meet that definition,” said Cpl. Scott MacRae. “That’s not to say it’s not disturbing for those who were unfortunate to see it or interpret it. But in the true sense, it doesn’t fall under the hate crime (category).”
MacRae says there is a graffiti problem in the Halifax Regional Municipality.
He encouraged residents to report incidents immediately and clean graffiti up as soon as possible, or call the city to have the graffiti removed.
“We do take it very seriously,” he added. “It breeds other crimes. It brings down neighbourhoods.”
