https://nypost.com/2020/09/18/cops-probe-swastika-cut-into-front-yard-of-north-carolina-home/
Police investigate swastika cut into front yard of North Carolina home
By Joshua Rhett Miller
September 18, 2020 | 11:55am | Updated
A massive swastika was carved into the front yard of a North Carolina home belonging to a black family, authorities said.
Deputies from the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office found the large swastika, apparently cut into the grass with a lawnmower, Wednesday at a home in Richlands, where
Tapresha Cummings, who is black, said her family’s property was targeted by “just pure evil” out of nowhere.
“The people who owned this home (my Nana and Papa) were some of the most loving people in the world,” Cummings wrote on Facebook. “Everyone who knew them loved them. To have someone do something like this breaks my heart … This WILL NOT be tolerated. I don’t why they chose our family home, but you picked the wrong house.”
Cummings, a Richlands native, told the Jacksonville Daily News no one currently lives at the home after her grandparents moved out following property damage from Hurricane Florence in 2018.
“My nana and papa raised me in that home and just to know that someone took the time out of their day to do this, that is hurtful,” Cummings told the newspaper. “Racism has never went away but it is very prevalent right now.”
Onslow County Sheriff Hans Miller said he reached out to the homeowner and his neighbors to assure them that an investigation into the hateful display is underway.
“We are taking this incident very seriously,” Miller said in a statement obtained by The Post. “When we learned of the incident, we sent a deputy out to take a report and dispatched detectives shortly thereafter.”
Detectives are “doing everything possible” to track down whoever is responsible for the swastika, Miller said.
“This kind of behavior is NOT acceptable in our county or our country,” Miller’s statement continued. “We encourage anyone with information to please come forward and let us know.”
Cummings said her family plans to add signs warning trespassers to stay away, as well as to install a security system, she told the Daily News while speaking directly to the culprit who vandalized the yard.
“You wouldn’t want someone coming up to your house and mowing Black Lives Matter into your yard or destroying your property,” Cummings said. “I want them to remember the next they think about doing something to hurt someone else.”
The Onslow County branch of the NAACP claims a witness saw the alleged perpetrator drive a lawnmower from the home of Cummings’ family to a neighbor’s residence.
“The officer allegedly said if they could not identify the face of the assailant they could not do anything,” NAACP officials said.
Cummings, meanwhile, insinuated she noticed similarities between the way the grass on one neighbor’s lawn was cut and the way the swastika was cut into her grandparents’ lawn.
“This is a disgrace and no I will not shut up until something is done,” Cummings wrote in a Facebook post early Friday.
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