Police arrest three in Fountain Hills hate crime

The Republic:

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio made the announcement at a community meeting Wednesday.

Alex Castellanos, 18, along with two juveniles ages 17 and 15 were charged with criminal damage, officials said.

The three students admitted to vandalizing seven vehicles, Arpaio said.

The story still doesn’t make clear how many incident actually occurred in Fountain Hills. It ends with this curious passage:

Parents of the three students will also be cited through a town ordinance, Arpaio said. The sheriff, who offered a $5,000 reward to find the vandals, said the students didn’t have a racial motivation.

The kids allegedly wrote KKK on a black family’s car. Even in today’s post-factual society, this seems like a stretch.

More on the hate crime in Fountain Hills

Turns out the ugly racial incident in Fountain Hills—in which some black residents had their cars vandalized with racial and sexual insults—is part of a series.

The Arizona Republic story on the issue is a bit unclear about what exactly has happened in the town. The resident, Michele Jabar, is quoted saying there have been “several” racial incidents. We then read:

Jaber was referring to a prior incident in Fountain Hills in which vandals sprayed more than a dozen cars with swastikas and graffiti of male genitalia.

Note the word “incident.” But then comes this news, a graf or two later, emphasis added:

Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies are investigating several cases as possible hate crimes, including an incident in which someone wrote the word “Jew” on another car in Fountain Hills, law-enforcement officials said.

The town is having a meeting to support the Jabars, but she, for one, is saying she might leave town:

Jaber plans to attend tonight’s service. She hopes residents will rally together to champion more racial and cultural tolerance in the community.

“I just wanted people to know that you can wash off the cars, but you can’t wash off the hate,” Jaber said. “Hate starts at home.”

The story doesn’t mention another anti-Semitic incident that occurred in Tempe on Friday night—a demonstration outside a synagogue. (“The anti-Semitic demonstration in Tempe no one’s talking about.”) The protesters, who according to an eyewitness held signs saying “Kill the Jews,” however, were from out of town.

Hate crime in Fountain Hills

From the Republic:

Three years ago, Michele Jaber left Burbank, Calif., for Fountain Hills with a better future for her children in mind.

On Sunday, as Jaber, who is Black, and her husband, Mike, hoped for a quiet barbecue with friends from California, they instead found a swastika, “KKK” and sexual images painted on the windows of two vehicles.

“I was completely shocked and saddened for my friends to come all this way and see this,” Jaber said.

The vandals wrote on the passenger’s side window of the Jabers’ Ford Bronco. A Cadillac Escalade rented by Classietta Foreman, who traveled with others from California, also was tagged as it sat near the curb.

It’s the second local incident of the sort, the story said. Jaber is quoted in the story saying that sheriff deputies said the vandals might have been “children in the area with too much time on their hands.”

AZFamily.com has video here.

Update: Abc15.com’s Tim Vetscher has this bigger-picture story:

PHOENIX — Experts who track hate crimes say the number of instances nationally and here in Arizona is on the rise.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website, 19 hate groups currently call Arizona home, including 12 right here in the Valley.

One of the most high profile hate crimes here in the Valley happened on February 26th, 2004.

On that day, investigators say two alleged white supremacists from Illinois sent a letter bomb to Don Logan, then Director of Scottsdale’s Office of Diversity.
[…]
According to the SPLC, the Aryan Nation and the KKK are just two of the hate groups, currently calling Arizona home.