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Vandals daub slurs on walls of condo

Racial and anti-Semitic messages written in tar bring fear to some residents of the 55-plus complex.

By JACOB H. FRIES
Published April 29, 2005

DUNEDIN - As Lawrence Woodward scrubbed with a gasoline-soaked rag, the worst of the words began to blur, then finally disappeared.

"This is my home," Woodward said Thursday as he tried to erase the work of vandals at Patrician Oaks, a 55-plus condominium community. "It's offensive."

He, like other residents, woke to find black tar from the newly paved parking lot scrawled into racist and anti-Semitic messages, including n----- and "KKK." The vandals also tracked the sticky tar across sidewalks and onto the exterior wall of one of the condos at 870 Virginia Ave.

The number of footprints seemed to indicate several perpetrators - and by their size, at least some adults. Among the slurs were drawings of marijuana leaves and the message "Old People Suck."

"It's disgusting. If that were done by my son, they would be hearing from me - and I don't care what the law says about spanking," said Herbie Glickstein, 80, a retired truck driver and the condo's board director.

The graffiti was reported to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office shortly after 7 a.m. Thursday. A community policing officer will investigate the vandalism further, but it was too early to say whether the incident constituted a hate crime, said Mac McMullen, a sheriff's spokesman.

Glickstein said it was clearly a crime motivated by prejudice, and he believed the messages were directed, in part, at an African-American man living at the condo complex.

Investigators have not identified any suspects, but several residents said they believed the graffiti was the work of teenagers who sneak into the condominium's pool, despite repeated requests not to.

"We can't say it's them, but we all just assume it is," Glickstein said.

His wife, Ann, chimed in as he spoke, "They should make them paint it over."

Glickstein was less diplomatic. "They should make them eat it," he said.

News of the vandalism spread quickly and sent fear through many of the community's oldest residents, Glickstein said. Several kept their drapes pulled tight and flipped off the lights Thursday.

Woodward, as he scrubbed, said he didn't want to wait for someone else to clean up.

"This country's gone insane," he said. "They were kids probably buzzing on something. . . . They don't even know what these words mean."

[Last modified April 29, 2005, 00:34:18]