Racist Graffiti Painted On Future Cops Shop

Pete Canfield’s neighborhood is crowded with children’s Big Wheels, tables full of garage sale booties, and a diverse group of neighbors trying to live happily and peacefully.

There’s not much space for anything else, especially ignorant people, Canfield said.

“There’s no room for hate here,” Canfield said.

The angry Canfield woke up Saturday morning and discovered racist graffiti on a building next to his house near Shannon and Wall streets.

Canfield left his home at about 9:30 a.m. to run an errand when he saw it. On the side of a brick building, the future home of a police substation, someone spraypainted swastikas, a Ku Klux Klan cross, and the words “White Power” in blue, red and yellow paint.

“This is nothing but hate,” Canfield said, as he paced up and down Wall street in front of the building that was targeted. “We don’t need it. We don’t want it. We won’t tolerate it.”

Canfield believes the work is an act of cowards who came at night or in the early morning to spread their hate. Canfield didn’t see the messages when he passed the building at 8 p.m. Friday.

“What frightens me the most is the ignorance of people who do this,” Canfield said. “This is a slap in the face” to the community, he added.

The incident sent shock waves throughout the neighborhood, which has African American, Native American, Chinese, Hispanic and Caucasian families who live within a block or two of Canfield.

“I’m really glad that I’m moving,” said Kathleen Carroll, who lives a few homes down the street from the building.

Carroll said the neighborhood has gotten worse in recent years since she moved there 18 years ago. Her bi-racial son became a target of hate crime a couple of years ago when a white man yelled racial slurs at her son at a nearby convenience store.

“It’s really sad,” Carroll said. “I hope it will be a wake up call to all of us.”

Terry Cochran, who has lived in a house next door to Canfield for the last 26 years, said the hate graffiti was the first of its kind in her neighborhood since she’s been there.

“I’m incensed that somebody would do that to our neighborhood,” Cochran said.

Meanwhile, Canfield, who has been living in the neighborhood for the past five years, rallied neighbors to report the incident.

Several people called police, hoping authorities would come out and take pictures so they could start cleaning up the mess. But no one had arrived by late Saturday, Canfield said.

“With the staffing the way it is, this has a lower priority, but something that will be followed up on,” said Dick Cottam, police spokesman.

Cottam said gang graffiti, including that of white supremacist groups, is not uncommon in Spokane.

Canfield said he tried to warn police not to put a Community Oriented Policing Services shop in the neighborhood, fearing it would become a target for crime.

But Cottam said neighborhood COPS shops are meant to do the opposite.

“It’s a deterrent because it brings people into the cop shop… and they begin to get better informed about what’s going on in the neighborhood,” Cottam said.

Canfield and other neighbors tried to start a neighborhood watch program a year ago but there was little interest. He hopes the incident will encourage neighbors to unite and watch out for one another.

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