A senseless act of homophobic vandalism has one Halifax-area family appealing to the public for help in bringing the perpetrators to justice.
After a night of playing video games and having some drinks with friends, Rob Moore says his 19-year-old son Liam was shocked to find holes in his tires and white spray paint coating the sides of his vehicle.
“This sort of thing I’ve never heard of happening before,” said Moore, who spoke to Global News on his son’s behalf. “He doesn’t know who it would be.”
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The vehicle, which was nestled in the back of a cul de sac behind the elementary schools in Upper Tantallon, N.S., is believed to have been vandalized sometime between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m.
Moore says it took his son a couple hours to scrub off most of the spray paint. They believe it will cost at least $800 to replace the damaged winter tires.
But their focus now is on figuring out who’s responsible.
“He’s got no enemies that he’s aware of, kind of keeps to himself,” says Moore. “He’s just trying to get through university.”
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Moore posted photos of the vandalism on his Facebook page. The post was shared over 300 times in less than five hours.
Moore hopes that the increased exposure of the vandalism will help catch whoever’s responsible.
“The response on Facebook has been tremendous. A lot of people have been sharing it,” Moore says. “I think it can only increase the chances of finding out who did this.”
“I would like to see whoever did this wake up today and realize that what they did was wrong and fess up to it.”
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Moore says a neighbour captured security footage of an unknown vehicle in the area around 4 a.m. and submitted it to police. Nova Scotia RCMP tells Global News they are aware of the situation and the investigation is in its early stages.
But Moore is more concerned about figuring out what — and why — this happened, especially in such a derogatory fashion.
“It this day and age, there’s just no time for stuff like that. Some people could consider that a hate crime,” he said.
“Whether it was directed at [Liam] or whoever it was directed at, you just don’t need to see that.”