AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: APRIL 2017 7 Men of different religious faiths help lift a fallen tombstone at the Jewish Mount Carmel Cemetery recently in Philadelphia, PA. Police say more than 100 tombstones were vandalized a week after a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis was desecrated. (Photo courtesy DOMINICK REUTER/AFP/Getty Images) I t’s no secret that there’s been a spike in hate crimes in the USA recently. In Connecticut, the questions for one couple are these – do they wash the racist graffiti off their garage door as local officials have insisted? Or do they leave the scrawled N-word up to force local police to inves- tigate the crime to a fuller extent? For now, Heather Lindsay and her husband Lexene Charles plan to pay the “blight citation” $100 daily fine. The couple has been re- peatedly targeted for racial abuse. Mr. Charles is black and Lindsay is white. They told FOX News that they found the most recent graffiti on the weekend lead- ing up to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Lindsay said that they will not paint over the N-word until authorities take the is- sue more seriously and not just sweep it under the rug as the couple alleged authori- ties have done in the past. Lindsay says their home has been vandalized mul- tiple times and at least three of her neighbors have yelled racial slurs at her husband. The local and state chap- ters of the NAACP con- demned the incident and called out city officials over their response (or lack there- of). “For them to be called n-- --, it must be so hurtful that they can easily just erase the board and suffer within, quietly by themselves, and act like nothing happened,” said Darnell Crosland, legal counsel for the state chapter of the NAACP. “And in fact, that’s what the Stamford police asked them to do. They were re- quested to take the sign down and to just act normal, like nothing happened.” Authorities said they were investigating but having a hell of a time finding wit- nesses due to the “no snitch- ing” problem with some community members. Stamford Director of Pub- lic Safety Ted Jankowski said the police department re- peatedly offered to remove the slur from the house at no cost, but the couple re- fused. “However, the residents who have condemned the racial incident are upset and are complaining about continuing to see the racial slur and saying that it is disturbing the peace in the quiet neighborhood.” It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get. – Confucius We’ll pay the fine! ly, Inc. 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