Police investigate Vance Monument vandalism
NC law: “If a person shall, because of race, color, religion, nationality, or country of origin, assault another person, or damage or deface the property of another person, or threaten to do any such act, he shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.”
ASHEVILLE - Police were investigating a case of vandalism at Vance Monument over the weekend.
Someone spray-painted what appeared to be a noose above blue, block-lettered words, “BLACK LIVES MATTER.”
Asheville Police Department spokeswoman Christina Hallingse said Monday that the noose and words were found about 11 p.m. Sunday.
Police “are investigating the issue,” Hallingse said.
Hallingse could not say whether police are looking into the incident as a hate crime. That would be a question for the city attorney, she said.
City officials were off Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
Reasons a hate crime may have been committed, according to the Asheville Police Department’s website, include “written or oral comments of the perpetrator” and the “date of incident coincides with a day that is significant to the victim’s protected class.”
The department’s website also states, “Hate crimes include not only violence against individuals or groups, but also crimes against property, such as arson or vandalism.”
Hallingse said the words “Black Lives Matter” also were written on the Vance Monument last year. But no noose accompanied the words, she said.
The 50-foot obelisk in Pack Square Park is named after Zebulon Vance, a 19th-century governor and U.S. congressman who owned slaves.
Local activists and historians for months have been collecting signatures for a petition that supports constructing a complementary monument near Vance that would describe the parallel African-American history.