Messages Of Hate Scrawled Graffiti On Road Signs Upset Neighborhood On South Side
This South Side cul-de-sac is an unlikely place to see venomous hate graffiti.
But Friday afternoon, neighbors living at 64th and Regal stepped outside to see swastikas sprayed on four road signs. Another was painted in the street. And “Welcome 2 Nazi Court,” “White Power” and a threatening racial epithet were scrawled on the sidewalk in green paint.
Residents are sickened, saddened and a little scared. None would give his or her name for this story.
“I want somebody to investigate, because what they wrote on the sidewalk is awful,” one of the neighbors said Saturday. “We don’t want anyone to think we’re like that in Spokane.”
She said vandals sprayed the hate messages sometime between 2:30 and 4:30 p.m. She said about 10 “partiers” were in the area at the time - loud teenagers whom she believed had been drinking. They came in two vehicles - a primer-colored, Camaro-type car with a missing headlight and a black, open-topped Jeep with a rollbar.
Neighbors called Crime Check, she said, and were told someone would come by to take pictures of the graffiti. “They said there might be a message,” the woman said of Crime Check dispatchers. “There’s definitely a message.”
By Saturday afternoon, no one had come to take pictures, she said. And one neighbor claimed she was told to remove the graffiti from a sidewalk or receive a citation from the county.
“It really burns me up… It’s on the county signs, it’s in the middle of the road,” complained one resident.
Sheriff’s Lt. Gerry Fojtik said citizens must remove graffiti only from private property, none of which appeared damaged in this recent vandalism.
He said members of the county gang unit would be out taking pictures Monday, and the county would clean the public sidewalk, street and replace the street signs.
The county planned to wait until Monday to avoid overtime costs, Fojtik said.
A relative of one of the neighbors spent Saturday afternoon scrubbing the sidewalk with solvent and a wire brush. He said he didn’t mind the work, he just wanted to get rid of vitriolic messages.
“You always hear about it in other places,” he said, “and now it’s here.”
One neighbor of the cul-de-sac of six homes said teenagers used to have parties across the street at the Moran Cemetery. But the gatherings stopped after someone cleaned up the overgrown foliage the teenagers hid behind.
That made Friday’s graffiti seem all the more shocking, the neighbor said.
“I guess we feel like we’re victims. It shouldn’t happen in any neighborhood, but this is a nice neighborhood.
“I guess that doesn’t matter anymore.”
, DataTimes