Update: Racists Target Lake City Man

Coeur d’Alene resident Haitham Joudeh woke to a call from the Coeur d’Alene Police Department on Friday morning telling him of the racist graffiti that was painted on his truck sometime after midnight. He talked about the incident that happened on the corner of Third Street and Coeur d’Alene Avenue today. Haitham is a Muslim of Middle Eastern descent. He currently has a $25 million lawsuit against the county pending in which he alleges that a storage project he proposed for Mica Bay was turned down by county commissioners because of his ethnicity and religion. KHQ story here . (Kathy Plonka/SR)

A Coeur d’Alene man of Middle Eastern descent left his pickup parked downtown Thursday night and returned to find it spray-painted with swastikas and a racial slur and a front tire slashed. The Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations counts the incident as the seventh hate crime perpetrated in the Inland Northwest since May, co-founder Tony Stewart said Friday. Haitham Joudeh, 33, who is a Muslim of Jordanian descent, was celebrating a friend’s birthday Thursday and left his black Ford F350 truck parked at the corner of Third Street and Coeur d’Alene Avenue. Friends drove Joudeh and his wife home around midnight, he said. In the morning, he was notified by police that his truck had been vandalized. Two swastikas were painted on it along with a slur urging him to “go home”/ Alison Boggs , SR. More here .

Question: There have been 7 hate crimes in the Inland Northwest since May. What has triggered this recent epidemic of hate crimes locally?