We kill U. We will fire your house. Watch your kids. Those threats and other profanities – spray-painted on a two-story house in black, orange and neon green – are terrorizing a Wayne, Illinois family of five who police say have been singled out for their Hindu beliefs and Asian Indian roots.
Since the discovery of the vandalism on May 27 afternoon, the couple and their three children have struggled with the brazen nature of the crime and their inexplicable status as objects of hate. The father said his three children are aware of the graffiti but he would not let them see the words scrawled on the back of the family’s house, front steps and rear patio. He and his wife drive straight into their garage and enter the home from there.
“They don’t understand it,” the father said of his two boys, ages 11 and 16, and 13-year-old daughter. “They were born here (in the United States) and they go to school here in Wayne. They learn what everybody else does. They don’t feel any different from the next kid.” Such is their fear that the couple, who moved into the new house in the Toms Lake community in November, asked that their names not be published. Several times during an interview, the couple stopped talking and stared at cars that had slowed or stopped on the street in front of their house.
Police made the crime public for the first time, while acknowledging the family also had received a series of hateful letters and found threats painted on their garage door in January. No one had been arrested so far.
The family said the letters had arrived in their mailbox over four consecutive days in late January. They opened the first two, finding different handwriting in each, but were instructed by police to simply turn over the remaining letters. After that, there had been a quiet period, when the family tried to forget it all. Then, the latest one came.
“It’s ruining our lives,” the husband said. “My wife can’t even sleep at night.”
Police said the crime apparently occurred Saturday (May 27) after 4:00 p.m. A neighbor got suspicious when she saw two individuals, described only as dark-haired teenagers or men in their early 20s, in the victims’ backyard. She then saw the fluorescent paint and called her husband, who urged her to call police. The neighbor’s husband said he was stunned when he saw the painted words, including “I hate Indians” and others targeting Hindus that are too vulgar to print.
“You can’t believe your eyes when you see it,” the neighbor said, requesting anonymity. “I mean, how do you make sense of something like this?”
Mayor Scott Rumana expressed similar disgust: “Any action like this is not tolerated whatsoever, and I’m appalled that any individual and any family would be subjected to this kind of treatment,” he said. “We are all neighbors no matter what religious or ethnic background. We expect people to be understanding and supportive of that position.”
About 1,000 Wayne residents reported Asian Indian ancestry in the 2000 Census, or about 2 percent of the township’s population.
News of the hate crime came as a shock to Jyoti Gandhi, a lay Hindu leader and past president of Arya Samaj of New Jersey – a Hindu group that meets in Ridgewood. She said she has never felt discrimination in her home of Saddle River or in the town where she worships.
“I’m very surprised, to say the least, that this would happen here,” she said, adding that many bias crimes against Hindus may go unreported. “A lot of times the Hindu families don’t say anything. They just swallow it to keep the peace.”
The Wayne couple said they had had no experience with hate speech prior to this year. A 42-year-old businessman, who was born and raised in Tanzania, the husband moved to Passaic with his brother and father when he was 17. He married his wife, a native of Bombay, India, in 1988 and the two started a family in Clifton. Since resettling in Wayne, the couple said, they have had no problems with neighbors and that most had been friendly. The couple has a small Hindu temple in their house and pray daily, the husband said.
In recent days, the father has tried to remove the graffiti and splashed black paint on the back walls and patio, but most of the words remain legible. Police said its removal by professionals could cost thousands of dollars.
Generally, vandals are charged with third-degree criminal mischief if the damage they cause is more than $500. If such an offense is deemed a hate crime, it also could result in a second-degree bias intimidation charge. For adult offenders, second-degree crimes carry a maximum term of 10 years in state prison.
Asked why the January incidents were not made public at the time, Detective Capt. Paul Ireland said police had hoped the crimes were isolated instances and that an arrest would be made quickly. “We were hoping we would be able to solve it without the public’s help,” he said. “At this point we’re hoping the public can assist us in finding out who is responsible for this.”
