PAINTED HATE
House, church in Trenton hit with homophobic, antiSemitic graffiti over the weekend >>
TRENTON >> Rick Geers spent more than two hours Monday applying thick coats of gray paint over remnants of a Swastika and anti-gay message tagged outside two of his rental properties on Adeline Street.
Police are trying to find whoever tagged the stairwell landing of two homes on the first block of Adeline Street sometime Saturday morning. A black spraypainted Swastika and a picture an an erect, ejaculating penis appeared along a message seemingly targeting tenants of the homes: “F*gs live here.”
The same morning, officers responded to the Trenton Church of God of Prophecy on the 300 block of Second Street after someone tagged “666” and “suck the devil’s d*ck” in red spray paint on an exterior door and wall of the Pentecostal church, according to police.
The Trentonian attempted to leave a message with church officials but a voicemail inbox was full.
Trenton Police Capt. Stephen Varn said detectives are investigating the taggings as bias crimes and believe they could be linked because they happened around the same time leading to increased patrols in the areas.
Geers owns the Adeline Street properties and said neither of the Latino tenants are gay. He knew of at least one Jewish landlord who owns properties in the neighborhood.
“I’m not going to poohpooh the whole thing,” Geers said, as he took a break from painting. “If you look down the block, this was a ready-made canvas for some stupid [person]. We’re not taking it lightly.”
City officials aren’t, either, especially due to the rise in hate crimes under President Donald Trump who has used racially charged rhetoric throughout his time in office.
Extremism experts told The Associated Press in the aftermath of a deadly shooting rampage in El Paso this year that there could be a link with Trump’s incendiary political speech and the increase in hate crimes.
FBI statistics showed hate crimes rose 17 percent in 2017 (7,175 incidents) compared to the previous year.
Mayor Reed Gusciora was elected Trenton’s first openly gay mayor last year in a city that previously had a bad rap for being unfriendly to the LGBTQ community.
He believes residents embrace differences evidenced by the turnout at last month’s Pride Parade, but the weekend taggings prove hate isn’t completely absent from New Jersey’s capital.
The city’s council president, Kathy McBride, was forced to apologize last month after she used the anti-Semitic phrase “Jew her down” at a closed-door meeting during lawsuit settlement discussions.
“Hate speech has no place in a diverse city such as Trenton,” Gusciora said. “It has caused alarm. We hope this is a singular incident and not a pattern. This also seems to be reverberating across the county, the freely practiced politics of destruction.”
Karen Medina, 25, lives in one of the tagged homes with her husband and two children, ages 3 and 1. The family moved in to the home this spring and hasn’t had any problems until last week.
Medina said her mother went out around 11 a.m. Saturday morning to purchase stuff from the corner store but didn’t notice any graffiti at that time.
Medina believed the taggers hit around 11:15 a.m. while she cooked and the kids watched a movie.
A neighbor across the street pointed out the Nazi propaganda to Medina. She could make out the fresh smell of paint in the air and was shocked to learn what had happened.
“I was like what does that mean,” Medina said of the swastika. “Is it a gang? So, I got worried. We just moved here. We haven’t had no problems. I like it here.”
Medina called her nextdoor neighbor to tell her want happened. The neighbor wasn’t home when The Trentonian stopped by Monday afternoon, and she did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment.
Soon, the homes swarmed with detectives.
Medina walked down the block to see if other residences were tagged, worried when cops suspected their homes were targeted, but found none.
Cops asked Medina whether the couple had issues with anyone but she couldn’t think of a reason for someone to tag her home.
Geers, who is a wellknown in the neighborhood, plans to install cameras outside the rentals to ease his tenants’ minds.
Geers is Catholic, his wife and children Jewish, but he doesn’t believe whoever’s responsible for the hate tags were sending him a message.
Still, he can’t discount the possibility.
“It’s always something in the back of your mind,” he said. “Why was it just on my building, like a scare tactic that way? I’m not gonna make a mountain out of a molehill. Kinda gives them the upper hand when you do that. Just paint over it. Put some cameras up. If it happens again, we’ll be ready for them.”
Police scoured areas around the homes and church looking for surveillance that may have captured the perpetrators. No arrests have been made, Varn said, and the investigation is ongoing.
Gusciora hopes the hate graffiti was made by “a couple of idiots who don’t have anything better to do with a can of spray-paint” or a “couple juveniles who want to create mischief,” and don’t represent deepseated views of someone sinister.
“There is always pockets of hate everywhere you go,” Gusciora said. “I don’t think we have a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan or white supremacists here. We might have a couple people who are indoctrinated, but I don’t think there’s any organized hate groups. We don’t want anyone to make a habit of this. We want to send a strong message that we’re not tolerating this. If we can find the perpetrators, they will be punished to the full extent of the law.”
Geers said the city must send a message to whoever tagged up the neighborhood.
“I realize that people with that mentality kinda hate everybody,” he said. “But a swastika? Kinda in the wrong neighborhood for that to make any impact. I just want to believe it’s dumb kids. I’m here enough, and I have a relationship with all the people on the street that I kinda feel like I would know if there was some underlying racist stuff going on.”
Trenton Police urged anyone with information about the hateful taggings to contact Detective Tom Brophy and Detective Sgt. Lisette Rios at 609-9894155.