LOWELL — Threatening words painted against the blue siding of a Birch Street home aim to intimidate the white man who lives there and loves a black woman.
“We will burn you out,” the words state.
An adjacent image of a stick figure hanging from gallows sends its own message.
A hate crime, says Police Chief Mark Buchanan.
A coward, says Allen Doug McGee, the target of these threats.
“This is very rude,” said McGee, 39, his thick arms bulging from a work shirt bearing his name. “I don’t go to anyone else’s house and tear things up, writing racial slurs.”
Not the first time
Not all of McGee’s friends approve of his girlfriend, Cyd McDaniel, who also lives in Lowell and works in family counseling, he said.
Thursday’s racially motivated message was not the first.
On Feb. 23, someone put a brick on McGee’s front porch along with a noose. Police wouldn’t disclose the contents of the note, but McGee and McDaniel did.
“We don’t approve. End it,” the note stated, according to the couple. “If your daddy knew what you was doing he’d flip over in the grave.”
Ironically, McGee’s maternal grandfather was black, he said.
“This is the 2000s now, and life doesn’t have to be about color or race,” he said.
Federal law requires states to keep separate records on hate crimes. No police agency in Gaston County reported any hate crimes in 2007, the most current year for which statistics are available. Across the state that year, police agencies reported 85 incidents, including 55 involving race, most of them anti-black.
In 2006, police agencies reported 99 hate crimes in North Carolina, including eight in Gaston County, according to state records kept by the state Attorney General’s Office.
This ranks as a hate crime, Chief Buchanan said.
“It’s definitely racially motivated by the statement left on the brick,” Buchanan said Thursday morning. “There’s no way to get around that.”
LOWELL — Threatening words painted against the blue siding of a Birch Street home aim to intimidate the white man who lives there and loves a black woman.
“We will burn you out,” the words state.
An adjacent image of a stick figure hanging from gallows sends its own message.
A hate crime, says Police Chief Mark Buchanan.
A coward, says Allen Doug McGee, the target of these threats.
“This is very rude,” said McGee, 39, his thick arms bulging from a work shirt bearing his name. “I don’t go to anyone else’s house and tear things up, writing racial slurs.”
Not the first time
Not all of McGee’s friends approve of his girlfriend, Cyd McDaniel, who also lives in Lowell and works in family counseling, he said.
Thursday’s racially motivated message was not the first.
On Feb. 23, someone put a brick on McGee’s front porch along with a noose. Police wouldn’t disclose the contents of the note, but McGee and McDaniel did.
“We don’t approve. End it,” the note stated, according to the couple. “If your daddy knew what you was doing he’d flip over in the grave.”
Ironically, McGee’s maternal grandfather was black, he said.
“This is the 2000s now, and life doesn’t have to be about color or race,” he said.
Federal law requires states to keep separate records on hate crimes. No police agency in Gaston County reported any hate crimes in 2007, the most current year for which statistics are available. Across the state that year, police agencies reported 85 incidents, including 55 involving race, most of them anti-black.
In 2006, police agencies reported 99 hate crimes in North Carolina, including eight in Gaston County, according to state records kept by the state Attorney General’s Office.
This ranks as a hate crime, Chief Buchanan said.
“It’s definitely racially motivated by the statement left on the brick,” Buchanan said Thursday morning. “There’s no way to get around that.”
McGee said he plans to take care of the matter, and won’t need help from police.
“I want to hurt this person,” McGee said.
http://www.gastongazette.com/news/lowell-45230-police-involves.htmlHe's not asking for police help which makes me wonder?
Why? But who knows?