Neighbors wake to outbreak of racist graffiti

Racist graffiti showed up on car windows, in driveways and on garbage cans in the Truman neighborhood. But the most painfully personal was a message Shamarica Scott found down the road from her house.

"Shamarica is a dumb (derogatory term)," the tagging read.

"It made me feel really unsafe," said Scott, a 16-year-old black student at Fort Vancouver High School. "What did I do to get my name on the street?"

Scott’s home on Northeast 44th Avenue was also vandalized. It was among at least five residences targeted late Friday or early Saturday by vandals. Sheriff’s detectives and FBI agents are investigating and haven’t made any arrests, said Clark County sheriff’s Sgt. Scott Schanaker.

Schanaker said investigators believe the incidents are related, but they do not have a suspect or suspects identified.

Most graffiti was either in the form of a swastika or a racial slur. Scott said she’s never had problems with graffiti in the past and doesn’t know what fueled the incident.

Investigators don’t know, either. Hate graffiti is common, and trends show that it isn’t confined to one specific area.

"It’s amazing how much this type of stuff happens," Schanaker said.

The first incident was reported to deputies just before 8:30 am. Saturday in the 4300 block of Northeast 39th Street, when a large swastika was found scrawled on a garage door in silver spray-paint.

Within several hours deputies had four more reports.

A racial slur was discovered spray-painted on a van parked in the driveway a block away, and a swastika had been painted on the tailgate of a pickup nearby, Schanaker said.

Then, three vehicles were found vandalized in the 3900 block of Northeast 39th Street. A racial slur was written on a Chevrolet Malibu, a Cadillac and a Chevrolet Suburban. A slur against homosexuals was also written, Schanaker said.

At Scott’s house, someone painted a racist message on the driveway, and on a garbage can wrote: "(Derogatory term) get out of our hood."

Soon after, deputies found the tagging on streets as well as on a number of road signs surrounding Northeast 39th Street, Schanaker said.

The residents of two of the five residences vandalized were black, and the rest were white.

Late Tuesday morning, most of the graffiti had been cleaned up, including where it named Scott specifically. The other graffiti remains on her driveway. Her family doesn’t know how it plans to cover up the black spray-paint.

"We’re waiting for Mother Nature to clean it up," Scott said.

Laura McVicker: 360-735-4516 or laura.mcvicker@columbian.com.