On Thursday an Arab-American man woke up to a racial slur spray-painted on his garage door at his Ypsilanti home. On Wednesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Michigan urged the Washtenaw County prosecutor’s attorney to charge the suspect. The Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office also claimed the vandalism was not racially motivated. CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid hopes Washtenaw County will bring charges on the suspect.
“We call on the Washtenaw County prosecutor to treat this recent vandalism in which a despicable racial slur was used as an act prosecutable under our state’s ethnic intimidation law,” Dawud said in a press release. “This crime clearly fits in the guidelines of a crime meant to intimidate or harass someone based on their ethnicity as any vandalism at an Arab-American’s home using the slur ‘sand (n-word)’ has clear racist import.”
Walid also said he hopes instances in which people are not charged for hate crimes will not continue, referencing the hate crime at Eastern Michigan University in which a student was not charged for placing a black doll in a shower in a manner representing lynching.
“We hope that in this particular case there is not a pattern of them avoiding charging people of ethnic intimidation as it pertains to people being harassed for their race or ethnicity,” Walid told The Daily.