River Park South home target of hate crime

“Why would someone do this?”

You can add racial vandalism to the growing list of crimes occurring in River Park South these days.

A week after a day-care play area was targeted by vandals two blocks away, the Labossiere family on Kevin Place woke up to find graffiti scrawled on their fence, garage and minivan.

Even more disturbing was the word ‘nigger’ in four-foot letters written on the garage door and the not surprisingly misspelled ‘niiggr’ with a heart after it sprayed on the side of the garage. There was also a swastika painted on the back fence of the home.

Oddly, the Labossiere family are all caucasian.

“Everyone in the neighbourhood was just in shock, said Carol Labossiere.

“I didn’t even think people still used that word.”

Ayman Yassini, executive director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation in Toronto agreed that the “N” word isn’t widely used.

“Obviously, it is a derogatory term used to spread hate which is unacceptable. We refer to the black population as Afro-Canadians because we recognize their heritage, we’re proud of their heritage,” he said.

Labossiere was horrified that her home projected the racist message to all her neighbours and was especially upset by the fact she has three small children, ages two, seven and eight, and also runs a day care from her home.

“The sad part about this is that my kids can read. The two older ones asked us what that word meant, it’s not a word we use in our house,” she said.

Labossiere’s home is adjacent to a bike path that cuts through the suburban area. A quick look reveals that graffiti is nothing new to the area as stop signs, bike path signs, fences and hydro poles are tagged with the unintelligible messages.

The difference this time is that it’s a hate crime according to Sgt. John Burchill of the Winnipeg Police Service hate crimes unit.

“I would consider this a hate crime. In reality it sends a message out to people using the bike path by the house – that’s who the other victims are, all the people that see it and are affected by it,” he said.

Labossiere called police on a Saturday morning to report the crime and when officers hadn’t showed up later in the afternoon, she called police back and told them they needed to start cleaning up. Understandably, they didn’t want the graffiti there any longer.

Police advised them to take pictures before they removed any evidence to present to officers when they arrived.

It cost the Labossiere’s $200 and took two days to remove the vandalism.

“Officers told us it would probably happen again, considering the location of the house and the fact that graffiti has increased in the area,” she said.

According to Labossiere, police are rarely seen patrolling the area.

In 2006, there were 65 reported cases of graffiti vandalism throughout the City and the punishment if anyone is ever caught often involves doing community service or paying a small fine, according to Burchill.

If the crime is hate related, judges often hand down stiffer sentences he said.

“There should be harsher penalties, these kids aren’t learning anything,” a frustrated Labossiere said.

Even though she has a harder time sleeping now, Labossiere still sees a place where people care.

“There are a lot of really nice neighbours around here. One even offered us his pressure washer to wash off the graffiti,” she said.

“I just hope that saying what goes around comes around comes true to whoever did this.”