Cleveland-area family: ‘We’re being targeted’
But police want more cooperation from the Berrys.
MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS — Carlos and Dawn Berry moved their bedroom downstairs for fear over their children’s safety once vandals started using the outside of their two-story bungalow as a canvas for racial slurs.
The couple moved from Brook Park to their home in June of 2011 and, from day one, the interracial couple dealt with issues from city ordinances to breakins, racially-charged vandalism and a cross burning on their front lawn.
“It wasn’t 15 minutes until we got the keys when things start happening,” Dawn Berry said.
For the past seven years, the couple and their six children say they have been subjected to violent burglaries and possible hate crimes.
Last month, someone spray painted two swastikas on the family’s garage and vinyl siding. Repeated phrases of “white only,” “n——-s,” “get out,” “u don’t belong here,” “KKK” and “f—k you” covers each side of the home.
Someone torched the family’s 2011 Ford Expedition last week as it sat in the driveway. The smell of smoke lingers in the SUV and its windows are black from the residue left behind by the fire. It’s a total loss, Carlos Berry said.
Vandals have also left dead animals on the couple’s property and a cross made from tree branches was burned in the front yard of the home. Someone hanged a stuffed monkey from a tree in their lawn. A bottle of feces was also left in the garage with racist language written on it.
There has been some criticism over what Carlos and Dawn Berry has described over the last several years.
The most recent incident was Wednesday when Carlos Berry was stabbed at his home after he heard a man trying to get through the side gate and into the backyard. He tried to grab the man when he was stabbed, Carlos Berry said. It’s the second time he’s been stabbed and has had over 100 stitches total from both stabbings, he said.
“I felt safe over here,” Dawn Berry said. “I wouldn’t have bought the house if I didn’t, especially with the kids.”
The Berrys showed a cleveland.com reporter a large stack of documents they say are proof of the incidents. The couple also said they had recordings of the hate they’ve endured over the years.
“We’ve been told we’re not wanted here,” Dawn Berry said. “We were told we weren’t wanted here and that we were making the property value go down.”
Nonstop incidents
The past seven years of Carlos and Dawn Berry’s life has been tumultuous. Majority of the family’s struggles have been documented in nearly three dozen Middleburg Heights police reports and calls of service between 2011 to last week.
Documents detail a number of incidents ranging from medical emergencies, burglaries, vandalism, physical attacks and a question over a fire pit by Mayor Gary Starr, who was the Berry’s next door neighbor for almost three years.
One of the first incidents happened in 2012 when someone removed the pins from Dawn Berry’s snow plow which was attached to her Ford 250. The wire harness on the plow was cut and the plow pump was stolen, according to a police report dated Nov. 17, 2012.
Dawn Berry called police two months later after someone stole her purse out of her truck. It was left unlocked and running, records show.
Starr, who has since moved away, called police on Aug. 3, 2013, because Dawn Berry was burning a tree in a fire pit and it created a lot of smoke that blew into his property, a police report said. Dawn Berry was having a fire on her patio for her son’s birthday party. A pile of fresh cut wood was sitting next to the metal fire pit, police said.
Middleburg Heights Fire Department officials determined the fire pit was legal, but suggested Dawn Berry stop burning the fresh cut wood and use seasoned wood to cut down on the amount of smoke.
Two weeks later, Dawn Berry requested police come to her home to intervene because Starr and his wife were making derogatory comments about her and her children to another neighbor, documents say.
“Caller states she’s tired of this and just wants it to stop,” the police report said.
Officers went to Carlos and Dawn Berry’s home a third time that August after someone burglarized the home and stole a video game system, jewelry, a jewelry box and several bottles of alcohol, police said.
Dawn Berry and her children went to get ice cream about 10:30 p.m. They returned to find the house dark and the front door propped open. Dawn Berry told police she thinks she saw someone in the house when she went inside. Police noticed the house was in disarray as drawers were pulled out, mattress were thrown off its foundation and a bedroom sliding door was open, the report said.
Carlos and Dawn Berry said their home has been broken into a five times since they moved there. Middleburg Heights police records confirm their claim.
The burglars have walked away with either jewelry, electronics and destroyed furniture in each incident. A pile of broken furniture and a television sits in the living room of the couple’s home. A couch was also cut during one of the burglaries.
One of the most violent burglaries happened July 19, 2015. Someone hit Dawn Berry from behind after she took out the trash. She ran into the kitchen to get a knife and when she turned around she noticed three men. She tried to break out of all of the windows in the breakfast area and yell for help, according to a police report.
The men knocked her to the ground and kicked her in the ribs and hit her in the face several times until she lost consciousness. Dawn Berry had visible bruises under her right eye and scrapes on her knuckles, investigators said.
The men put duct tape around her neck, hands and feet. She said she managed to scratch one of the men and pull out some of his hair, police said.
Authorities describe the house has being “ransacked” when they arrived.
Carlos and Dawn Berry said they have been asking organizations, police and news outlets for help for years without any success. They’ve tried to deter burglars by putting several cameras up around the house. The cameras have been broken several times, Carlos Berry said. They are on their fourth or fifth set of cameras, he added.
The vandalism on the siding of their home, the stuffed monkey hanged from a tree, the truck fire and the stabbing of Carlos Berry all happened between May 9, 2018, and June 20, 2018, according to police documents.
No arrests have been made in any of the incidents.
Middleburg Heights police Chief Ed Tomba said there hasn’t been much cooperation from the Berry’s to help move the investigations forward.
“They call, we come out and they don’t cooperate. They’re not satisfied with the way we’re doing things, but we’ve asked for statements,” he said. “We have some fingerprints and DNA from one of the scenes, but we need their fingerprints and DNA to exclude them. We don’t use that for any other reason, but they don’t want to come into the station.”
Tomba acknowledged the surveillance cameras, but said they only work 20 percent of the time.
Dawn Berry said police should have DNA from the fingerprints and duct tape investigators took after the July 2015 attack. Carlos Berry refuses to allow his family to be fingerprinted by police due to his deep-rooted mistrust with police and the thought of DNA being placed at other crime scenes.
Tomba said a detective was at the home last week to help solve several of the open cases, but the Berrys denied the help.
Activists have taken to social media to post pictures of the condition of the home and planned two separate protest at city hall in an effort to get answers from officials.
“I think the family thinks there’s a conspiracy, but there isn’t,” he said. “We’ve had 32 calls for service there and we’ve responded to everyone. We’d love to have them come down and we’d love to take statements and have a cooperative attitude both ways.”
Tomba has expressed some skepticism about the vandalism and robberies. No one has been arrested or charged in the incidents.
“If they are being truly harassed, we can find out who it is and put a stop to it for them,” he said.
‘This is our home’
When Carlos and Dawn Berry bought their home they were both healthy, working and financially secure. They were able to update the home from its 1970s carpet and wall paper and even splurged a bit on their front lawn.
The family received a citation for their front yard after they got the keys to their new home on a quiet street in Middleburg Heights. Homes in the 6900 block of Paula Drive are large and open to spacious manicured front lawns and gated backyards. The Berry’s house sits directly across the street from Middleburg Heights Junior High School. The couple said they spent $10,000 on landscaping to ensure their yard wouldn’t be an issue.
It was an effort to make a home that was once an eyesore to match its neighbors and alleviate future problems.
Dawn Berry worked at AmeriGas Propane in Westlake making over $100,000 with bonuses while Carlos Berry worked at the Ford Ohio Assembly Plant in Avon Lake. But the family fell on hard times.
Dawn Berry was forced to stop working and had to go on disability after her physical health begin to deteriorate, she said.
Carlos Berry hasn’t been able to return back to work after he was accused of physically assaulting a woman at the Ford plant, he said. An Avon Lake Municipal Court judge later dismissed the charge.
He has tried to find a job but has come up short, even at the nearby Wendy’s. But Carlos and Dawn Berry are adamant about keeping their family together and not moving.
“This is our home,” Carlos Berry said. “We built this and I’m not letting anyone run us off. What would I be showing my kids if we decided to pick up and leave? I’ll be teaching them to run away from problems or let people run you off because of your color.”
Due to the news of the racial slurs and visibly graffiti, the Berrys have been inundated with requests and have received backlash from online commenters about whether they kept insurance on their now burned SUV. Dawn Berry said they didn’t have insurance because they couldn’t afford it. Others have questioned if they are doing this vandalism themselves to cash in on policies — the couple denies those accusations.
The burglaries and spray painting forced the Berrys to sleep in rotating shifts to help patrol the house. During the day their door stays open so they can focus on the driveway and street. Carlos Berry gets up often and looks out the window at every passing car while he sits in their living room.
“It boils down to this, we’ve been dealing with this since day one,” Dawn Berry said. “We’ve been asking people for help over, and over, and over again and nobody would help us. Did we fall on hard times? Yes we did. ‘Did we do this?’ is the question I think everybody wants to know. No. We did not. This has been going on for years.”