View Park police are investigating a possible hate crime after a family was targeted with racist graffiti on their property.
Vandalism discovered the morning after Halloween is generally not unheard of throughout the community. But the words scrawled on Garbutt’s house were scarier than any Halloween prank they could have imagined.
“I just…I really didn’t know what to do, I didn’t have any words,” Elizabeth Garbutt said.
On Friday, the family was frantically woken by staff from a nearby school who warned them of lewd messages scrawled around their house.
“She said, ‘Someone has graffitied your car, your house, your sidewalk…your side gate, and it has the N-word written on it,'” Garbutt recalled.
Garbutt said the sight brought tears to his eyes. Her daughter Elise told NBC4 she didn’t know what to think.
Elise works with children. She said she had to call her boss to say she couldn’t provide Friday school pick-up because a racial slur was scrawled on her car, but she didn’t think it was appropriate for school pick-up. spoke.
Perhaps more frightening for the family than what happened is why it happened.
The Garbutt family has lived in the home for 35 years, surrounded by longtime neighbors in a community with a large black population for generations. The Garbutts’ home is across the street from Crenshaw High School, and they say they have never had problems with vandalism or crime.
They told NBC4 they’ve been preoccupied with everything from potential traffic disputes to ex-partners to business disputes, but they can’t think of any reason why someone would target their home.
“I toss and turn and can’t sleep at night thinking about who would do this to us,” Garbutt said.
The Los Angeles Police Department wants to know the same thing.
The Garbutts had several conversations with officers, and detectives arrived Monday to search for witnesses, other possible vandalism and other video footage.
