Warning: Story contains racist content.
Racist graffiti was found in the 200-year-old neighbourhood of Barriefield Village over the Thanksgiving long weekend.
According to neighbours, a white garage on a home’s property was vandalized with part of the N-word spray-painted in purple early Sunday.
“I was more than angry. I was livid,” said John Licharson, who lives next door.
He says his neighbour quickly filed a police report and painted over the racial slur. Licharson took it one step further, building a sign reading “Racists Keep Out” and nailing it to the village entrance sign near Highway 15.
The spray paint may not have been a random act, according to Licharson. He says a mixed-race family from Texas lived in the home for many years before leaving just last year.
“Those kind of thugs who don’t like mix mixed-race families are the kind of thugs who do this,” Licharson said.
Researcher Timothy Bryan of Dalhousie University, who focuses on policing hate crime, race and racism, told Global News incidents like this one need to be taken seriously by police.
“Low-level kinds of activities like this may appear that you can simply paint over it if law enforcement doesn’t give it the attention that it requires — they can grow to be more serious and more serious,” Bryan said.
“What we want to avoid is arriving at a place where hate crime and racism are so normalized that victims don’t report and that police do nothing about it.”
Global News asked Kingston police how many hate crimes have been reported this year, and police say they are working on providing that number.
Police say the Barriefield Village incident is under investigation, and anyone with information is asked to come forward.
Global News reached out to the owner of the vandalized home and but the owner was unable to comment.