It’s been a month since someone spray-painted the word “nigger” on an interracial couple’s home in Stamford, Conn., over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, to be precise. However, the couple have refused to remove it, saying that authorities are not properly investigating the incident. And now the couple have received a blight citation from the city, carrying a $100 daily fine.
According to the Stamford Advocate, the couple believe that they are now under attack by the people who were supposed to protect them after receiving the citation for refusing to remove or cover up the slur, which was spray-painted in huge letters across their garage door.
Heather Lindsay, who is white, said that she will not remove the slur until authorities “do their job” and “not just cover it up and sweep it under the table as they have done in the past.”
Lindsay said that her home has been vandalized multiple times and that at least three neighbors have yelled the n-word at her husband, Lexene Charles, who is black.
“For them to be called nigger, it must be so hurtful that they can easily just erase the board and suffer within, quietly by themselves, and act like nothing happened,” Darnell Crosland, legal counsel for the state’s NAACP, told the news site. “And, in fact, that’s what the Stamford police asked them to do. They were requested to take the sign down ... and to just act normal, like nothing happened.”
Crosland is calling on the Stamford Police Department to conduct a full investigation of the hateful vandalism and to assure the couple of their safety.
“What we want you do to is to go canvass this neighborhood and find out who did this,” Crosland added. “What we want you to do is to put a patrol car out here and act like you give a damn, and make sure these people are protected.”
Authorities insist that they are investigating the issue properly.
“The incident that occurred is disgusting and it is something the Stamford Police Department continues to have under investigation,” the city’s director of public safety, Ted Jankowski, told the Advocate.
Jankowski said that officers spoke to the homeowners and neighbors but could not find a witness who saw or heard someone spray-painting the garage door. The security cameras in the area apparently did not capture the incident.
He added that the Police Department has offered multiple times to remove the slur from the door at no cost, and that Police Chief Jon Fontneau has personally spoken to the couple, but the homeowners have refused.
“The neighbors were very upset when the incident occurred and truly felt for the couple,” Jankowski wrote. “However, the residents who have condemned the racial incident are upset and are complaining about continuing to see the racial slur and how it is disturbing the peace in the quiet neighborhood.”
Because, you know, seeing a racial slur around your neighborhood is much more upsetting than knowing that someone in your neighborhood is racist enough and hateful enough to do that to a couple minding their own business.
One neighbor, Paul Evanko, told the Stamford Advocate that he understands how serious the incident is, but still hopes that the word gets covered soon.
“There are kids in the neighborhood,” he said. “Why do we have to subject them to that?”
Read more at the Stamford Advocate.